Plot Bunny Ranch
by TheBeardedOne
Summary: A place where my non-Naruto and non-Harry Potter ideas see the light of day.
1. Author's Notes

**Authors prologue for all stories.**

.

The following chapters contain chapters that I wrote for certain (non-Harry Potter or Naruto) stories which started promisingly… until my muse decided to relocate to an alternate dimension with no way of returning.

Needless to say (but I will say it anyway), this has left me with several dead stories.

I am therefore posting these aforementioned deceased articles of literature in the hope that someone out there (hint hint) can take the barely-connected ramblings which hover on the verge of insanity and through hard work and effort (or lots of alcohol) produce something readable.

To do so, just take the chapters and use them as a basis for your own work. Permission is granted in advance.

If you drop me a note once you've published your first chapter (that is the first chapter you wrote rather than copy-pasted or whatever), I'll place a link to it on my profile so that others can come and marvel at how your skill exceeds mine.

(Or laugh at your inability to spell and use the enter button. Whichever.)

For those who do not choose to pick up the gauntlet (£7.99 at all participating stores), the chapters ahead may yet inspire you to write your own fics.

Or you can simply laugh at them. Whichever.

I do have some stories I am working on, so do not abandon all hope.

Oh, who am I kidding. Despair away. See if I care.

Anyway, enjoy the story fragments.


	2. She-Hulk Taylor! - Worm&Marvel

_This is the collected scenelets for a potential worm fanfic that I considered, but abandoned. Worm itself is an original story that can be found _Parahumans dot wordpress dot com.  
_Needless to say, I own neither Worm nor She-Hulk.  
_.

**Worm Scenelets  
**She-Hulk Style

.

-The Locker-

I scrabbled at the door of my prison as the whining of the Janitor's hall-cleaning machine went past. I would have shouted, but my throat was too sore to even make a squeak.

The noise vanished and I slumped, fighting not to breath too deeply as the used tampons and sanitary towels that had been crammed into my locker shifted in response to my movement. The light leaking in around the edge of the locker door vanished as the janitor left and I was all alone.

My dad would be panicking, but he wouldn't know where I was.

I was all alone.

I was going to die here.

I needed to break out, but I wasn't strong enough.

I needed to be-

_Two giant beings spiraling through infinite space with the crashing of crystals  
__A shard heading straight towards me, glowing in colours I had never seen before  
__A rip opening up and a flash of something green hitting the shard, changing it as it hit me_

-stronger!

I flexed my shoulders and the metal of the locker ripped and tore like wet paper, the lockers to each side of me folding in on themselves and I emerged from my former jail like a butterfly from a chrysalis. For a moment, I felt weak again, then the strength flooded back through me, stronger and stronger until I felt like I could break the world with my bare hands!

Turning, I looked at the crumpled metal that had previously restrained me, that had imprisoned me and I reached out my-

-what the…?

My hand!

I stared at it for a long moment, then I turned and ran to the end of the corridor. Using the light shining in from the street, I stared at my hand, trying to deny it, but no.

It was green.

I stepped through the door and paused to wipe the plaster off my brow…

My thoughts stuttered to a halt and I turned to look at the doorway.

The doorway that now had a large hole in the lintel where I had just walked through, smashing the wall like it was made of cardboard.

Just how strong was I?

I shivered, then frowned as I realised that my clothes hadn't changed with me. It was a miracle that the rags that had once been my outfit hadn't finished breaking, but I needed to find something new, something that could fit me or at least stop me being arrested for indecent exposure.

On the plus side, my new boobs made Emma look flat-chested by comparison.

.

-Home-

I landed on the driveway, the hem of my improvised tunic fluttering in the breeze of my last leap. Stepping forwards, I staggered a bit as my foot caught briefly and I looked down to see what had…

Oh.

Well, maybe I could fix that crater. I mean, it's not like I'm a weakling any more, is it?

The front door opened and my heart seemed to stop as a familiar figure opened it.

"Dad?"

Dad froze as he stared at me, his eyes darting across my face, then his expression turned pale. "Taylor? What… what happened to you?"

.

I stepped into the living room and looked down at my legs. Dad's old jogging trousers may have been loose and flappy on him, but on me, they looked almost spray-painted on. I'd chosen to keep my bedsheet-tunic for now since nothing else in the house was suitable for an eight-foot tall woman to wear.

"Taylor."

"Dad." I smiled tearily, catching him into a hug.

"Mphylrrr, cnntbrth!"

I blushed furiously as I realised where Dad's face was and quickly released him. Dad was also blushing and for several moments, we simply stood there, trying to avoid each others gazes.

"So… what happened?" Dad finally asked and I sat down on the chair, wincing as it protested under my weight.

"Dad," I began, "I never told you this, but I was having trouble being bullied at school by Emma…"

.

-New Wave-

"Hello… wow." Carol Dallan paused half-way through the door as I stood up. A long moment passed, then she stepped aside as her daughter pushed through.

"Whoah…" Victoria breathed as she orbited me. "Wow. If you're even _half_ as strong as you look, you'll be a real asset! But… why not the Wards? Not that I'm suggesting them, of course."

"Do I look like I could hide my identity like they do?" I snorted, guesturing to myself. "I'm _eight feet tall_ and green! Somehow I don't think shades and a scarf will help."

"…BARNES!" Carol shouted and I spun round to see her staring at my dad. "I work with her dad!"

"And she caused my angel to Trigger." Dad said firmly.

"Wait, Emma Barnes caused you to Trigger?" Victoria asked in shock. "I've met her, she seemed okay…"

"She was until a year and a half ago." I sighed.

.

-Going Public-

.

I stood just outside the hall, hearing the humm of conversation, then a sharp beeping noise caught my attention. Half-turning, I saw Carol Dallon pulling her phone out and glaring at it.

"My boss has just called us all in." She grated. "Of all the…"

"Mom, I can do it." Victoria said from my side. Ever since I had applied for New Wave, Victoria had been testing herself against me and the results had impressed her. I was faster than her (when she wasn't flying), stronger, tougher and had a bigger bust (the last being what she was cheerfully most annoyed about). Although her force-fieldcould take a bigger single hit, I could withstand dozens, if not hundreds of strikes meaning that I was moving into position as the primary lightning bruiser of the team, a term that Victoria had gleefully explained to me.

"Good luck." Carol said to me. "Vicky, you should know the drill by now."

"We got it, mom." Glory Girl pouted. "We'll be fine."

Carol nodded, then turned and jogged towards the exit and we watched her go before Victoria coughed to regain my attention.

"Okay. When _I_ triggered and had my presentation, what I did was…"

I listened intently, fighting down the evil grin that threatened to cross my face as Victoria inadvertently gave me a way of getting revenge on the trio who had shut me in my locker.

.

"…and so may I present our newest member, the green goddess herself, Taylor Hebert, codenamed Jade!"

As Victoria finished her introductionary spiel, I strode onto the stage, stopping beside her and smiling widely at the audience of reporters. Beside me, Glory Girl didn't even reach my shoulder, making it seem almost like I was looming over her, but I didn't care.

"Good morning." I said with more calm than I was feeling. "I am honoured to have been accepted into the ranks of New Wave, although admittedly it would have been quite difficult for me to maintain a civilian identity given my… recent changes."

As I hoped, the wry comment caused a small wave of laughter.

"Victoria was kind enough to tell me about how she handled her presentation, so I'm going to defer to her superior experience, as I have no doubt I shall be doing in the field for quite some time."

There was another wave of laughter.

"My ratings came as a bit of a surprise to me." I admitted with a slight shrug. "Apparently, I'm a Brute seven variable, Mover four and Changer one, given that I used to be somewhat shorter and skinnier."

"Brute seven _variable_?" A voice asked and I nodded.

"Apparently, as I get angry, I get stronger. Now that the ratings are over, the next thing Victoria did at hers was to tell _how_ she got her powers, what caused her to trigger."

.

-Reactions-

Carol froze, then spun round. "Turn up the television!"

Alan Barnes was closest to it and he complied.

"_I was relentlessly bullied for almost two years by a trio of my fellow students at Winslow High School. The teachers refused to do anything about it, they refused to even admit that there was a problem and blamed me for any damage caused. I triggered when the three girls, Emma Barnes, Madison Clements and Sophia Hess, filled my locker with biological waste and locked me into it, leaving me to die."_

Carol stared at the screen, then her gaze snapped across to Alan, who was staring, pale-faced at Jade's image while everyone else glared at _him_.

"Alan." Carol ground out. "I wanted this to be private, but we need to talk."

.

"…_and Sophia Hess, filled my locker with biological waste and locked me into it, leaving me to die."_

Everyone in the wards room stared in shock at the screen, then all but one turned to glare at their final member.

"Sophia…" Dennis ground out, "What the _fuck_ were you playing at?"

"She… she's lying…" Sophia finally protested and Gallant shook his head.

"No, she isn't. You are, I can feel it."

"_SHADOW STALKER TO MY OFFICE NOW!_" Director Piggot's voice almost screamed out of the loudspeaker and Sophia Hess shook her head.

"No! No! Nonononono! That bitch! That fucking bitch! I'll kill her! I'll make her wish that she _died_ in that lo…"

Dennis lowered his hand and looked round.

"Does anyone know how to restrain her?"


	3. Gunstar - The Last Starfighter

_This was an attempt at doing a gen-fic for the film/book _The Last Starfighter _(which I do not own).  
The problem was, once I had established the backstory and characters, I had no clue where to take this._

**GUNSTAR**

Gunstar Defence Force Internal Memo  
Galactic date :- 4,075 F.L. 27 Oclan  
From :- Ambassador Enduran  
To :- The Council  
Re :- Future Of The Gunstar Defence Fleet  
Memo :- With the victory of Starfighter Alex Rogan (Human, Sol III, Age :- 18 Sol III years, 12 Galactic Standard Years) and Navigator Grig (R'TiLL, R'TiLLia, 24 Galactic Standard Years) in the currently unnamed prototype Gunstar II over the Ko-Dan forces led by the traitor Xur, the state of our interstellar defence arrangement has been placed under the ultrascope and has been found to be severely deficient, if not virtually nonexistent. With this in mind, I therefore propose the following:-

1 :- The immediate promotion of both Alex Rogan and Grig to Admiral (Earth-equivalent to Upper-Leader), and their immediate assignment to oversee the rebuilding and maintenance of the Gunstar Defence Fleet.

2 :- Increased funding of the G.D.F with the aim of at least 1,000 operational units by the end of 4,100 F.L.

3 :- Earth (Sol III, Star designation Sol, Reference Phi/Gamma 2341) to be granted provisional membership of the League under a new category, thus allowing us to recruit more Humans into the G.D.F.

4 :- Enhanced exploration of the unknown regions, with instructions to pay extra attention to Sol III analogues, both for new G.D.F. willing sentients, and possible locations for Human colonies to ensure future Starfighter recruits.

I await the response of the Council.  
Enduran of Rylos, Ambassador Grade VIII

* * *

Gunstar Defence Force Internal Memo  
Galactic Date :- 4,079 F.L. 8 Bitrok  
From :- Admiral Alex Rogan and Admiral Grig  
To :- The Council  
Re :- Annual Status Report For The Gunstar Defence Fleet  
Memo :- Current G.D.F. Status is as follows:-  
Gunstar Carriers :- 9 Active, 3 Under Repair, 14 Under Construction  
Starcruisers :- 18 Active, 8 under Repair, 40 Under Construction  
Scoutships :- 40 Active, 6 Under Repair, 92 Under Construction  
Gunstar Squadrons :- 40 Active, 6 In Reserve, 30 Under Construction

Standard Battle Group confirmed as :-  
Gunstar Carrier :- 1 (One / 0001)  
Starcruiser :- 2 (Two / 0010)  
Scoutship :- 4 (Four / 0100)  
Gunstar Squadrons :- 4 (Four / 0100)  
12 (Twelve / 1100) Gunstars per squadron

Computer Analysis suggests that at least 40 Battlegroups should be in deployed/deployment capable modes for 97% safety. So far, we have the ability to field 10 full Battlegroups. We are still expanding, and should reach optimum levels in six G.S.Y's.  
Admiral Alex Rogan of Sol III  
Admiral Grig of R'TiLLia

* * *

Gunstar Defence Force Internal Memo  
Galactic Date :- 4,080 F.L. 2 Pritla  
From :- Admiral Alex Rogan and Admiral Grig  
To :- The Council  
Re :- Gunstar Academy (Sol III)  
Memo :- The Gunstar Academy on Earth (Sol III) has been officially opened, and has already attracted many applicants, both from Earth and off it. In 4 Standard Earth Years (Approx 2.6 G.S.Y), the current class of students will graduate, prepared for whichever position they applied for, whether it be Starfighter, Navigator, Tech, Capital Ship Crew or Command Staff. With the influx of warriors from the armies of many of the old Earth nations, the Gunstar Defence Fleet is currently operating at 99.86% of current optimum, and at 113% of expected. Extra funding has been requested, and new projections suggest that projected optimum size will be achieved by 4,097 F.L. once combat losses are included.  
Admiral Alex Rogan of Sol III  
Admiral Grig of R'TiLLia

* * *

**GUNSTAR DEFENSE FORCE**

NEEDS

**YOU**

PILOTS AND STARFIGHTERS REQUIRED URGENTLY TO PROTECT THE LEAGUE

**BE THE BEST**

**FIGHT AMONG THE STARS**

APPLICATIONS TO :- GUNSTAR ACADEMY

ARIZONA

NORTH AMERICA

SOL III

TELEVIEWER CODE 754-333-GUNSTAR

* * *

**Academy**

The sun shone brightly overhead, reflecting off the white marble facing of the primary building of the sprawling Interstellar Space Exploration And Defence Academy, or the Gunstar Academy as it was more commonly called. In the third row of the massed, predominantly human, Starfighter Cadets, Josh Rogan looked up at the large marble Archway that marked the entrance to the Academy, and allowed his mind to drift back to the first time that he had seen it...

_"Wow!"_

_Alex laughed as he reached back to tap Josh's shoulder._

_"Strap in, son, we're going to land in a minute. There might be a bit of turbulence, and I don't want you starting your first lesson with a large number of bruises, your teachers might think you got into a fight."_

_Josh laughed and sat back in his seat, allowing the automatic harness to deploy, holding him firmly against the seat. In front of him, a screen showed the view underneath the shuttle._

_"Will I meet Grig again?"_

_"Oh yes, he'll be there, as will Jhohn."_

_Josh smiled._

_"I like Jhohn."_

_"Yes, but I wish that Grig hadn't named him after my dad. I mean, a R'TiLL called Jhohn? Only Grig could break with tradition like that."_

_"Must be your influence!"_

_Alex laughed at that as he feathered the throttle expertly and powered up the shuttle's anti-gravity unit._

_"True. This is shuttle Alpha-One to control, Alex Rogan speaking. Coming in on vector three-one-seven. Request landing permission."_

_There was a brief silence, then a respect-filled human voice replied over the comm-unit._

_"Admiral Rogan, this is control. Permission granted, Pad One, alongside shuttle Alpha-two. You have a friend waiting."_

_"Copy control. Alpha-one locked and descending."_

_Josh looked out of the cockpit at the ground coming towards them._

_"Dad! It's Grig! And Jhohn"_

_Josh started waving, and the humanoid lizard below waved back, as did the smaller version of him by his side._

_"Calm down, son. Sit back, we're coming in to land..."_

Josh pulled himself out of his memories and glanced over to his left, where Jhohn stood at attention next to him. As if he had read his mind, Jhohn glanced back and a corner of his stiff mouth twitched in a small smile before he returned his attention straight ahead. Josh also looked ahead, where an aged Rylan was walking with dignity towards the podium. Stepping onto the dais, he held up one hand, and the low conversations of the audience tapered off. Smiling slightly, he looked over at two figures half-hidden by the crowd, then began to speak.

"Greetings to all sentients here. For those of you who do not recognise me, I am Enduran of Rylos, the Commandant of the Interstellar Space Exploration And Defence Academy. Today, we are here to celebrate the graduation of another group of sentients willing to risk their lives to ensure that we will stay alive, who will live and die in the line of duty, that the rest of us may live in peace and harmony. When these sentients arrived here, there were far more of them, and they were filled with dreams. Now, the toughest of these dreamers stand before you, the strongest and the most flexible. Admiral Grig."

One of the two obscured figures strode forwards and it was all Josh could do to not grin. Grig leaped onto the dais, saluted Enduran and then stood behind the Podium, glancing down at the prompt-screen before speaking.

"It is my pleasure today to announce as truth what has been rumour for the last six months. Many of the records that have stood for the last ten years have not just been broken, but have been truly _smashed_, by a single Gunstar Trainee team, a Starfighter and Navigator working in almost telepathic harmony."

Grig paused dramatically, and Josh used his peripheral vision to look around him, trying to work out who Grig was referring to.

"This team even managed to break the Accuracy and Total scores for the Rylos Scenario, gaining perfect scores."

Behind Grig, a screen rose and brightened before darkening into a starfield with a simulated Gunstar in the middle. Two other screens bracketed it, and as Josh saw himself on one and Jhohn on the other, his memory catapulted him back to the training mission.

_"Ko-Dan command ship passing overhead."_

_Josh nodded slightly._

_"Prepare for overboost on engines when we launch, I want us to be breaking the sound barrier within the time it takes to sneeze."_

_"That may put some strain on the engines, they'll need total re-tuning afterwards."_

_"If we don't stop the command ship, there may not BE an afterwards."_

_Jhohn nodded and pressed several controls._

_"NOW"_

_As both Jhohn and Josh shouted, Jhohn's clawed fist descended on an otherwise innocuous button. With an incredible howl, the Gunstar rocketed forwards, slamming both of them back into their seats. The Ko-Dan fighters, caught by suprise , tried to dodge the seemingly suicidal streak of metal, and many collided. Josh spun in his seat and opened fire, destroying entire formations of Ko-Dan fighters as they scrambled to escape from the deadly craft._

_"Ten milliparts to strike!"_

_Josh nodded and spun again, devastating a squadron that was trying to sneak into a firing position._

_"Five milliparts."_

_Josh's fingers danced on the switches as he unleashed waves of directed energy in precisely controlled arcs and strikes._

_"Two milliparts!"_

_Josh spun his chair once more, shredding another two squadrons, then focussed on the small communications blister on the underside of the flagship._

_"In range!"_

_As Jhohn shouted those two words, Josh fired all weapons at the blister, which exploded into a million pieces. Instantly changing his aim, he fired on the metal exoskeleton that held the port engine. Seeing what Josh was doing, Jhohn directed the Gunstar into a single loop round the spar, then aimed at the remnants of the armada that was still heading for Rylos. Josh kept firing on the strut until it broke, then spun round and started to obliterate the rear squadrons. A few seconds later, the remaining Ko-Dan fighters woke up to their threat and spun round, weapons blazing._

_"The command ship!"_

_Reacting to Josh's command, Jhohn spun the Gunstar round and fired all engines at max thrust while Josh sent several waves of energy at the pursuing fighters. Ahead of them, the Command Ship spun out of control, shedding pieces as it rotated. Jhohn carefully evaded the debris, then threaded through the spinning remnants of the command ship while Josh fired missiles in all directions. Bursting out of the wreckage, Jhohn flipped the Gunstar round again, just in time to see the Command Ship explode, taking all the remaining Ko-Dan fighters with it._

The crowd cheered, jolting Josh back out of his memories. On the screen ahead of him, the debris of the simulated command ship and the wrecked fighters expanded as the camera zoomed in and round, revealing the barely-scratched sim-Gunstar. Grig turned back to face the audience and held up a hand for quiet.

"Thank you. It is my pleasure to announce the Team of Honour for this year, Josh Rogan of Sol III and Jhohn of R'TiLLia!"

A roar of applause slammed into Josh's ears and he all but staggered under the weight of the applause. Slowly it died down, and Admiral Rogan took the stand.

"Thank you for the applause. Now, as of 4097 F.L, 15th Bitrok, I now confirm you to be ensigns of the Gunstar Defence Force. May you live long, and fight well!"

"Live long and fight well!" roared the massed ensigns before breaking into spontaneous cheers.

.

"Wow!"

Beside him, Jhohn released a fluttering breath in the R'TiLLian method of expressing awe and amazement as he leaned backwards slightly to take in the sight of the tall column of scarred yet highly polished metal and technology that was the original Gunstar Mk II, the very ship that their respective fathers had flown into the battle that had saved the League. Behind them, Louis Rogan laughed lightly, without any mockery.

"I know, it gets me like that every time, the thought that my older brother sat in the Gunners seat and along with Grig, destroyed an entire Ko-Dan fleet. To me, that is amazing."

Louis manipulated a control, and the platform that they were standing on rose smoothly to the level of the Navigation station, where the seat looked like an afterthought added to the vast array of buttons, switches and newer touch-screens.

"Your dads still fly it now and again, you know. They got its systems and controls upgraded, but they ordered that the outer-hull be left as it was, to be instantly recognisable." Louis laughed lightly. "The League is so advanced, and yet the notion of customisable touch-screens totally passed them by. That innovation alone sent Grig into paroxysms of joy when he had them installed."

Once again the platform rose, this time only a small distance, stopping next to a second chamber, this one containing a Starfighter-seat, and a second seat recessed in the bulkhead behind it.

"Although your dad had that seat installed for Maggie, I got to sit in it when he collected me for training on Rylos. That was quite a ride, with that rogue Ko-Dan assault squad..."

Josh elbowed his uncle.

"Uncle, you didn't bring us here to enthuse over the most famous Gunstar in existence."

Louis looked abashed, and then allowed the platform to descend gently back to ground level.

"Sorry, just trying to get you into the required heroic mood."

"And indeed we are." said Jhohn. "Why did you want it, honor-uncle?"

Louis waved them towards a nondescript door, and produced a small security-chip which he fed into a disguised dataslot. With a near-silent hiss, the door opened slowly, retracting into the wall. As it opened, both Josh and Jhohn were astonished to see that it was almost a meter thick. Louis darted through, and yanked them both after him as the door finished opening and started to close again. Before them, a second door opened with incredible speed, revealing a bat-winged humanoid pointing a heavy multi-barrel pulse rifle at them. They all froze, then the humanoid nodded and lowered his rifle.

"Hi boss. These must be the newbie's."

"Indeed they are. This is my nephew Joshua Rogan, Josh for short, and Jhohn of R'TiLLia, son of Grig. Kids, these are my second in command, Kal'Thon the Mak'ton'Drak."

Kal'Thon bowed slightly, pulling his leathery wings inwards so that they resembled a cloak.

"The others are waiting for you."

Louis nodded and strode forward with Josh and Jhohn in tow. Behind them, Kal'Thon pressed several buttons on a recessed pad, and then followed them. They all came to a halt on a balcony overlooking a huge enclosed landing pit, in which a Starcruiser rested in a special cradle. Emblazoned on the flank of the Cruiser was a huge bronze Dragon, wings and talons fully extended. Looking along the port side of the 400 metre vessel, Josh noted the reduced armament, and the inclusion of three large hatches, each one big enough for a Gunstar to fly through. The belly of the ship boasted a bigger hatch surrounded by atmospheric-field generators and tractor beams. Louis made a sweeping gesture towards it.

"This is the Dragonwing, your newest base of operations. Boasting a crew of twenty four operatives, and fifty techs and crew, the Dragonwing has been rebuilt from the keel out. It holds six Hyper-Gunstars, which officially do not exist, and can launch them within ten seconds. It is also equipped with a stealth field, enhanced defensive shields and more powerful engines, making it faster in realspace and OverSpeed than even a Scout ship. However, it only has 12 laser batteries and four forward-firing missile tubes for defence, as its mission is to get the Hyper-Gunstars into range of the target, deploy them, then hide until the action is over."

As he spoke, the balcony descended until it reached an open airlock on the port stabiliser of the ship. Louis led them inside and tapped a comm-panel.

"Captain, this is Commodore Rogan. We're all aboard."

"_Acknowledged, Commodore Rogan. We'll depart in ten minutes._"

Josh and Jhohn followed Louis into the main briefing room of the ship and stopped as they came face-to-face with Kal'Thon and eight other beings, seated aroung the walls but facing the podium. Louis nodded to them, and then turned to face Josh and Jhohn.

"I have already briefed the squadron about you, so now I'll introduce you to them. First we have my navigator, Altana of Rylos."

The female Rylan raised a hand in greeting, and then dropped it.

"Next, we have Kal'Thon from Gir'igr, and next to them.. what?"

"Them?"

Louis smiled. "Yes, them. Kal'Thon are a fusion entity, Kal, a Makton who provides the ability to manipulate objects and to communicate verbally, and Thon, a Tondrak, a sentient flying touch-telepath. The two of them form Kal'Thon, and both we and they always refer to them in the plural. So, next to them we have their navigator, Ingg from R'Tillia's third colony. Next up, Slammer the Bodati, we cannot pronounce his real name, and his Navigator Kilk of Shro-Al. Frank Parks is teamed with Altara, twin of 'Tana and finally Xir, son of Enduran, and his Navigator Ro'oon from Woaould. I fly as Gold, Kal'Thon as Silver, Slammer as Red, Fank as Blue and Xir as Green. What colour do you two want?"

Josh and Jhohn glanced at each other, and Josh answered, "Black."

Louis nodded, and turned to Kal'thon, holding out his hand. Kal'thon frowned at him, and handed over a credit chip, as did Altara. At Josh's raised eyebrow, he grinned.

"Kal'thon said that you would go for grey and 'Tara guessed at white. I knew you both, and said black."

"Well," Jhosh said in an attempt to quell the glare that Josh was giving his uncle, "Shall we see our gunstar?"


	4. Dragon Power - Worm & HTTYD

Inspired by a SpaceBattles thread, Worm, How To Train Your Dragon-style.

**DragonPower! Taylor**

The smell was horrible and I had only a brief second to realize that the bottom third of my locker was filled with used tampons and other rubbish before I was propelled forwards, slamming into the back of the locker. The door slammed shut behind me and I could hear the lock engage even through the sudden burst of cackling.

"Let me out!" I screamed, but the noise outside my locker drowned my voice and I found myself unable to inhale enough for another scream because of the stench of the waste that I was standing in.

The bell rang and I frantically pounded on the locker door, but no-one answered and the sound died away, leaving me alone.

I needed to get out!

I needed someone to save me!

I needed…

_Two giant beings spiraling through infinite space with the crashing of crystals  
__A shard heading straight towards me, glowing in colours I had never seen before  
__AGREEMENT_

…help!

The locker door suddenly bent at the corner and I almost screamed as a giant claw punched through and then the door was ripped out of its frame. The fresh air galvanized me and I staggered forwards, tripping on the waste that blocked my feet and falling…

…landing on something heavy that _oof_ed from the impact.

I fumbled to re-adjust my glasses so that I could see even as I pushed myself back to my feet and turned to see a huge mouth filled with sharp teeth.

.

"Uuuurgh."

The world slowly swam back into focus and I tried to push myself up, only to freeze as I realised that I was not where I had been.

To either side, large black wings beat rhythmically and ahead of me was the head of whatever it was that had pulled me out of my locker. Tightening my grip, I peered down and far below, the lights of Brockton Bay were spread out like scattered jewels.

A whimper escaped my throat despite my best attempts and the dragon on whose back I was riding turned slightly, tilting his/her(?) head so that one eye could focus on me.

"Ummm, hi?" I squeaked and the dragon _churrrr_'d in what seemed to be laughter, then it made a querying noise.

"Um, can you take me home?"

The dragon nodded, then made another querying noise and I peeked over its shoulder again, trying to orient myself. That was the boardwalk, those shapes in the water were the docks, and that meant… there!

"My home is over there." I whispered, pointing briefly before regaining my grip and the dragon banked and entered a shallow dive, moving as if it was being careful not to drop me.

I was very grateful for that. I had no wish to _be_ dropped.

.

The dragon (and I _had_ to find a name for it) backwinged to a near-perfect landing on the lawn of my house. It would have been a true perfect landing if the final impact hadn't caused my grip to slip and sent me tumbling onto the grass.

"Owwwww." I whispered, then a large snout nudged me. "I'm okay."

A happy whine was my answer as I sat up, then the front door opened and my dad stood there, silhouetted by the hall light.

"Taylor? Aren't you over at Emma's like she called to say… what the hell?"

"Dad?" I said, feeling lunatic hilarity taking me over. "Meet my new friend, Midnight. Midnight, this is my dad, Danny Hebert."

Midnight nodded , flipping his ears? headfins? in greeting and Danny nodded back, his face slack with shock.

"Hello." He said, then he facepalmed. "Urgh, Taylor, why do you have a dragon?"

.

.

The straps attached to the saddle that dad had helped me to make held firmly as Midnight soared through the darkening sky. Perched on his back, I held onto the handles at the front of the saddle with a grip so tight that I was almost surprised that the metal bar (taken from an old bike) wasn't bending under the strain.

For myself, I had a full-face helmet that Dad and I had painted to look like the head of a dragon, with the visor being the mouth. A leather jacket with armoured inserts scavenged from one of dad's old protective vests kept me warm while my legs were protected by cargo pants and a set of leather panels that hung like a skirt when I was standing, but which let me ride astride without difficulty.

In holsters on my belt I carried pepper spray and a small tazer while a hatchet was secured across the small of my back, allowing me to grab it quickly if I needed it.

With the need to look after Midnight (fortunately, he ate fish and liked to catch them himself), dad and I had agreed that I could home-study and that we would cite the destruction of my locker as the final straw should Winslow try to raise a fuss.

Not that they would.

Movement below caught my attention and I shifted my weight, tapping Midnight with my knee to get him to swoop lower. Below us, a pair of figures leapt across the rooftops, one moving in a way that almost hurt my eyes while the second turned into a shadowy shape as it leapt over alleyways.

"Let's give them a flyby!" I laughed and Midnight let our a purr of agreement as his swoop turned into a power dive.

.

.

Vista ground her teeth as Shadow Stalker ran ahead of her, crossbow ready, then something swooped down from the heavens and raced past with a sound similar to tearing canvas. Vista froze, staring in shock at the now-receding shape while Shadow Stalker swore as she picked herself up from the gravel where her panicked dive had sent her.

"What the _fuck_ was _that_?" Shadow Stalker demanded and Vista grinned.

"It was a dragon!" She whispered in delight. "There's a real _dragon_ in Brockton Bay!"


	5. Justice - Worm

**Worm AltPower!Taylor**

**Marked Justice**

Director Piggot stared in near-shock at the picture of Sophia Hess lying in a hospital bed, her right shoulder bandaged where one of her crossbow quarrels had been extracted. Her face was severely bruised and her left arm was in plaster.

"What happened?"

"A Trigger event, ma'am." Colin replied. "A very… unusual one."

"A trigger event did _that_?" Piggot asked, waving the sheaf of documants and pictures in the air.

"Yes… and no." Armsmaster responded, causing Piggot to look at him in surprise. "The actual damage was taken when she attacked the person who underwent the trigger. However, the trigger event itself affected every person within half a mile of Winslow High School. All of them."

Piggot blinked. "Explain."

"Sophia Hess and two others have been bullying the girl in question, a Taylor Hebert." Colin said. "They have been doing so for over a year…"

"And no-one picked up on this?" Piggot snarled.

"The case-worker helped to cover it up, as did the principal at Winslow. Both are under arrest."

Emily nodded and motioned for Colin to continue.

"Yesterday, Sophia Hess and her two… acquaintances… locked Miss Hebert into her own locker, one which they had filled with used feminine hygeine products. Miss Hebert triggered in the locker… and switched places with Hess as a side-effect. Her power is… no. I will explain after.

"Hess promptly phased out of her locker, inadvertantly outing herself to several members of the ABB and E88. Realizing she had compromised her civilian identity, she blamed Miss Hebert for it and tried to attack her. However, Miss Hebert's power protected her."

Emily raised an eyebrow.

"It is a fascinating power. Everyone caught in the original pulse now has a small diamond sigil formed at the top of the neck, right where the spine meets the skull. The sigil is not visible as it is part of the bone itself and any attempt to surgically remove it will kill the person it is in. However, the sigil generates a field in which consequences are suffered by the person trying to perform any hostile act. If you punch someone with the sigil, you take the hit. Poison them, the poison relocates to your own body. Blow them up in an explosion, the kinetic energy transfers to you as the instigator. However, the reverse is also true. If they hit you, they take the damage."

"So… this affected _everyone_ at Winslow?" Piggot asked disbelievingly.

"Everyone including Miss Hebert herself. I can also confirm that Hookwolf, Rune and Oni Lee were caught in the effect." Armsmaster stated. "The latter three are currently in hospital."

"My god…"

"Miss Hebert was unaware of what she had done, although she can detect the locations of all the sigils. An experiment performed with Strider's help has shown that the range is planetary. In addition, Miss Hebert can switch places with anyone who has a Sigil, although if the distance is more than ten meters, the person she is switching with has to be willing to swap. She can also bestow a Sigil on someone, but only if they are willing. In addition, she can remove the Sigil. Both are achieved by touching the area where the Sigil is formed. At this time, she is removing the Sigils from any non-gang-member who wishes to have it removed. A surprising number have stated that they wish to keep it, as they are of a pacifist nature and the Sigil will protect them from anyone who tries to harm them."

"And Shadow Stalker's injuries…?"

"Hess fired her crossbow at Miss Hebert. Fortunately, she was aiming to disable rather than kill, otherwise she would be in the morgue and not the hospital." Colin said. "I have already inducted Miss Hebert into the Wards and teamed her up with Vista, who now has a Sigil of her own due to her preference for non-violent techniques. Anyone who now attacks Vista will be in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Emily nodded slowly. The youngest Ward, if Colin was correct, now had what may be the ultimate defence.

"And… Taylor?"

"Is happy with the new arrangement." Colin said. "She is currently seeing if she can create a form of the Sigil that lets her swap with the person bearing it, but which does not actually generate the…"

"The…?"

"Clockblocker named it the Justice Field." Colin sighed. "I have been unable to come up with a more appropriate name."

.

.

_This was a concept inspired by Red Dwarf, but given a few tiny twists. Taylor has an absolute defence, but she cannot actually attack or try to injure anyone as she would take the damage she tried to deal. Part of her story would be trying to turn the damned field off so that she could dope-slap Clockblocker for all his terrible jokes._


	6. The Truth - Worm

_A Plot Concept that occurred to me, but which I haven't the time (or world-knowledge) to follow through on.  
__Wildbow owns Worm. Anyone who disagrees will be swarmed by_ **BEEES!**

.

**A Dangerous Thing That Should Be Approached With Caution**

.

Principal Blackwell dropped her head into her hands as the door slammed shut. Barely ten minutes ago, Taylor Hebert had been stretchered away after being shut into her locker, a locker filled with used tampons, sanitary towels and other toxic waste. When the Janitor had let her out, it was too late.

The girl had already Triggered.

The first sign that she had had that anything was wrong was when a dome of light expanded through the school, a moving wall that had apparently done nothing other than look odd as it expanded outwards.

The second sign had sent her into a near-panic.

She was unable to lie.

Even to herself.

Blackwell sighed. She had been so keen to keep the Ward at her school (with the financial rewards that entailed) that she had ignored what Hess had been doing, something that had been picked up by the other teachers over the last year and a half.

She couldn't lie to herself about it. She _needed_ that extra funding for the school, but now…

…now _no-one_ who had been hit by the dome of light could knowingly lie.

Armsmaster had just informed her that the school was being quarantined and Hess was being extracted before her identity was blown (assuming that it already hadn't been). The only saving grace was that the effect had been range-limited, less than half a mile across (which was still wide enough to cover the whole school and some of the surrounding neighborhood).

But what could she have done? Looking back, she had tried her best for the whole school, even if it meant that one or two pupils had to be sacrificed (metaphorically speaking) to stop them creating waves…

But the unpalatable truth that she could not deny was in the forefront of her mind.

Three little words with so much hurt in them.

She.  
Had.  
Failed.

.

Emma Barnes wept in the bathroom. The light that had swept across the classroom earlier had stripped away all of her self-delusion, all of the lies that she had told herself in an attempt to hide the truth within.

She was weak.

Taylor Hebert had been her best friend, they had strengthened each other until she had thrown that friendship away in favor of one with the ward that had only moved to save her after she had tried to fight.

Taylor would have charged in immediately.

Her attempts to prove herself stronger than Taylor had backfired. She could see that now. Taylor had risen above her, had attained greater strength than Emma had ever seen.

The strength to hold back.

This had been proven to her when she asked Madison what she thought of Emma, and her words had struck at her heart.

"I think you're a vicious bitch who loves to inflict pain on others to make herself feel good and I only follow you so that I don't become a target myself."

The light had stripped away all lies.

Even the ones that people could tell themselves.

Broken and desolate, Emma Barnes wept.

.

Armsmaster looked at the small picture being projected in the corner of his visor. A small part of his mind calculated ways that the definition could be increased, but most of his attention was on the conversation he was having with Dragon.

"…say again?"

"_As soon as word got out that she was still generating a truth-field, albeit one stretching only twelve feet away from her, the government banned her from going to Washington or near any other seat of power. In addition, every single student and teacher at Winslow has been deemed unsuitable for government work due to the effect that Miss Hebert's Trigger had."_

Armsmaster managed not to snort with laughter. He didn't understand why people lied, it was inefficient.

"Very well. Keep monitoring her, please."

"_Of course, Colin."_

Armsmaster changed radio channels with a well-practiced flick-and-twitch of his eyes. "Armsmaster to PRT Control, I need someone to pick up a Mr Danny Hebert, father of Taylor Hebert, and bring him to the hospital where his daughter is."

A file flicked up on the other side of his visor and Armsmaster frowned in confusion.

"Possible S-Class threat? Hebert? Why?"

"_Say again, sir?"_

Armsmaster refocused his attention. "Ignore last comment."

"_Yes sir."_

.

Dragon's circuits hummed as she ran extrapolations and cross-references.

Used correctly (as so many powers were not), Taylor Hebert could be the greatest force for justice in the world.

Dragon made a small note to have Taylor Hebert attend the upcoming trial of the metahuman known as Canary. Too many flags had been raised suggesting that the singer was about to become an object lesson and sent to the Birdcage just because her power triggered at _exactly_ the wrong time.

Maybe the _aura of truth_ could prevent that…

.

Coil swore as he received a report tha one of his PRT moles had been discovered…

…in _both_ timelines simultaneously.

The PRT was now aware of his penetration of them, that he was spying on what they did.

He would need to rethink quite a few of his schemes.

Maybe he would seize the precog Alcott sooner…

One of his selves sent out the message while the other considered the possible ramifications.

.

.

.

.

_Yep, it's the basis for an AltPower!Taylor plot. Taylor wields the Truth._


	7. Small Advantages - Worm (cont in ch14)

_Inspired by a post on SpaceBattles._  
_Taylor's trigger gives her control over her blood, which has changed into nanomachines.  
Oh yeah, Wildbow owns Worm etc._

.

**Small Advantages**

I looked at the thing in front of me and through it, I looked back at myself.

After _the incident_, I awoke to find that I had gained full control over my body. I could adjust my adrenaline, modify my bones, enhance my muscles and actually develop breasts (finding out the hard way that they ached when I ran. Thank god for the Alexandria line of Sports Bras). Of course, the thing was, the larger the change, the longer it took. Hormone control? Real-time. Enhancing my eyes so I didn't need glasses? An hour. Adjusting muscles and bone? That took me almost a week. Growing actual boobs? A fortnight (and totally worth it).

On the other hand, my power left me looking almost like a ghost. My skin was so pale, it was almost translucent. I put it down as a side-effect and it was, but not how I thought.

Then when I was in the library, one of the trio threw a coin at me, a coin which cut my forehead open and a few spots of silvery blood fell down, landing on the casing of the computer and dripping through.

And that was when I _knew_.

Through my blood, I could _feel_ the data flowing through the circuits. My awareness expanded as I _understood_ the computer, both on a physical level and an informational one.

Despite what it sounds like, it wasn't instant, it took a couple of hours to reach a useful stage, but through the computer, I could access the internet at any time, any place.

With no-one knowing.

When I got home, I pulled out a digital camera that dad had won in a raffle one year, but had never been able to get working. Opening it up, I used a pin to shed a drop of blood into it, and soon, I could _understand_ it. How the lens and sensor worked, how it turned the picture into a file, how it could store it on a card.

How to _change_ it.

Soon, I had it re-shaped into a small helicopter with the camera at the front, a camera that I could see through without effort.

My smile would have done that bitch Sophia proud.

With this, I could keep watch over myself. Shift the imagery to the computer and put it on Viewtube.

The teachers wouldn't be able to deny the bullying at school for much longer.

-:-:-:-

Damn it!

Sophia was a Cape! And not just _any_ cape, she was Shadow Stalker!

My drone had watched her reach into my new locker and steal my purse.

If I released the imagery, the Protectorate would come after me. They'd find out about my power and force me to join the Wards, the same damned Wards as that sanctimonious bitch!

I had to use my power to lower my hormones to a level that allowed me to think clearly.

I needed more access to the internet, more things under my control.

I needed… to be _more_.

-:-:-:-

My trip to the Boat Graveyard went without a hitch. It's something of a retreat for those who want to be alone for one reason or another. Rumor has it that at least one of the rusting hulls has been re-purposed, whether as a nightclub, Merchant's drug lab, secret villain base or whatever. Not that I cared.

Instead, I walked to one of the furthest boats reachable at low tide and smeared some of my blood on it. It went to work almost instantly, eating into and merging with the hull as it reproduced.

When it was finished, I would have several tons of the silvery liquid ready to do with as I wished. Although it would take several weeks, the wait would be worth it.

-:-:-:-

By adapting my drone, I was able to have it carry small thimblefuls of my blood to wherever I needed to create a new link. I no longer needed to cut myself to shed the liquid, instead it oozed out through small pores in my skin whenever I wished it to.

The ship in the harbor was already half-converted, although anyone looking at it wouldn't see any difference. I had been riffling through the internet, downloading schematics for armor plating and mecha-suits from Japanese cartoons. Most were impractical, but some of them, I could make work. Given how much of my Silverblood I was going to have available, perhaps a transforming suit with me safely ensconced in a small reinforced shell would be a good idea.

One thing that caught my attention was a set of transmission dishes that didn't seem to belong to anyone. I sent my drone to co-opt them for my use.

Soon I would become a _true_ hero.

-:-:-:-

Testing out of school was easy with my link to the internet. By quoting rules and regulations to Principal Blackwell as well as playing on… _the incident_, I'd managed to sort-of blackmail her into letting me test out. I could have scored full marks, but that would have caused suspicion, so I calculated the average score and split the difference between that and full.

It worked.

Dad was quite surprised, but I managed to fob him off with an _"I got a Thinker power in that locker"_ excuse.

God, I felt so bad, lying to him.

But now, it was time. At the Boatyard, I called my Silverblood to me, wrapping it round me and compressing it down. My rooftop link into the Protectorate base had allowed me access to their secure files, including data on pocket dimensions.

It was easy to build a small dimensional pocket to hold the excess with the entrance to it contained in a small geodesic sphere just small enough to hold with my thumbs and fingers touching as they encircled it, a thin strand connecting the sphere to me.

And that was when the idea occurred to me.

My entire body was now saturated with Silverblood to the point that modifications that had taken weeks before, now took seconds. I didn't hesitate as I opened the casing, pressed it against my chest and _poured_ myself into it, hiding my vulnerable organic parts away even as I used some of my Silverblood to recreate a copy of my body _around_ the sphere.

With my outer body now an artificial but fully-functional puppet capable of infinite forms and my true self floating in perfect safety, encased and supported by at least a thousand tons of Silverblood, I was now probably one of the most powerful Capes in existence barring Scion himself.

But what name should I use?

I accessed the Internet again, cross-referencing various languages and concepts, then I discovered one which seemed to be just _perfect_ given what I could do.

Given what I _was_.

The name seemed to sing as I created an alt-form for myself. Masculine in appearance to separate me from my other personae. Plate armor designed with tiny etchings and ridges giving the appearance of the plates having been molded. Small pistons to make people believe that it was power armor, thus explaining my strength.

And visible in a small gap in the helm, a partial face was visible from the nose down with skin _just_ dark enough that the Empire 88 would never think to try and recruit me.

I _grew_ a jetpack on my back, using files on anti-gravity devices to give me aerial mobility, and a knee-length cape to cover it as I walked. A kite-shaped shield on my arm and a sword on my hip completed the transformation and now no-one would ever link me with my new self

Mercurius Bellator.

The Quicksilver Knight.

Grinning inside my hidden sanctuary, I poured my awareness into my puppet and took to the skies.

-:-:-:-

"…and if any of them go down, double-tap them to be certain." Lung finished and I ground my teeth in rage.

He was sending his men to kill _children_!

I needed _something_ big to make me stand out as a hero and it would seem that Lung had just volunteered.

Even as I put one foot on the parapet of the roof in preparation for my dramatic entrance, I simultaneously accessed the Protectorates tactical systems. The nearest Cape was Armsmaster on Patrol and even he was over five minutes away.

Five minutes for me to prove myself.

Even as the first shout from below marked someone with above-average awareness had spotted me, I launched myself into the air, somersaulting and flaring my cloak to slow myself slightly before I slammed onto the road in a three-point landing. Rising to my feet, I unsheathed my sword, channeling more Silverblood to it so that the blade that I brandished was obviously far longer than could have fit inside the scabbard.

Lungs eyes widened behind his metal mask and I smirked at him.

"Thy reign of terror ends tonight, dragon!" I declaimed, using my experiences from my brief membership of the school drama club (back when I was still friends with… _her_,) to be as dramatic as possible.

As the first bullets _ping_ed off my armor, I stepped forwards, using my shield to block Lung's first punch, then thrust with my sword, scoring his shoulder and shedding first blood.

.

.

_Armsmaster stared at the sight before him in shock. Lung was lying motionless on the ground, wrapped up in metallic bonds. Behind Lung, standing proud and with both hands clasped on the pommel of his greatsword, a man stood in a pose eerily reminiscent of AllFather, but the darkness of his chin showed that he had no link to the Empire 88._

_The tableaux was made even more astonishing by the person next to Lung. The teleporter Oni Lee was kneeling on the ground, blindfolded and with his hands cuffed behind his back while around them, gang members had been knocked down and chained to various buildings or lamp-posts._

"_Armsmaster." The armored figure nodded in greeting. "Know that I have done thy task for thee and remember mine words, for I am Mercurius Bellator and I claim the rank of Protector of Brocton Bay. See before thee the truth of mine words."_

_Armsmaster lowly advanced, then froze again as Bellator lifted his greatsword into the air before sheathing it in a scabbard far too small to have held it._

"_I shall leave these knaves and rogues in thy hands, Armsmaster, and charge thee with ensuring their trial and imprisonment. Fail not in this mission."_

_Before Armsmaster could respond, Bellator's cape flared outwards and he rose rapidly into the air, vanishing into the sky._

_How the hell was he going to report this?_

.

.

"_Holy fuck." Tattletale breathed as the Undersiders watched their unexpected savior fly away. "I couldn't get a single reading from him! Not one!"_

"_We can discuss this back at the base." Grue said, clambering onto one of the enhanced dogs. "Let's go."_

_Tattletale stared up at the sky for a long moment, then back down at where Armsmaster was checking the bound forms of the two ABB Capes._

"_Holy fuck. He managed to Master Lung!"_


	8. Secret History - Despicable Me

_A little one-shot showing what I think Universal Pictures should have done.  
Needless to say, I don't own Minions or anything else referenced in this short tale._

_._

**Secret History Of The Minions  
****AKA How they really started…**

.

"For this plan to work, I need more minions." Gru mused, looking at the bustling yellow horde below him. "Perhaps… perhaps I can clone them… That will double their number and give me a true workforce…"

For a long moment, Gru stood in thought, barely noticing the worshiping gaze of his assistants. They had been worshiping him form the moment that they had met him during his attempted theft of the Crown Jewels in England and had given their total loyalty to him for reasons that they still hadn't explained, but he was used to that.

"Once I do this, I'll be able to afford Dr. Nefario's services…" Gru continued to muse. "In fact, I may be able to hire him now for this job…"

His decision made, Gru stalked out of the main hall of his underground base, pausing only to pat the heads of several of his admiring minions.

.

"Well, it can be done…" Neferio mused. "Of course, they'll just be babies… unless… hold on…"

Gru watched as Neferio rummaged in the back of the van that he had arrived in, then the older villain produced an odd-looking device with what looked like a neon-Y mounted on it.

"I… _ahem_, borrowed this flux capacitor from a hero calling himself Doc Brown and modified it." Nefario smirked. "It creates a temporal field that'll let us grow the clones to maturity in moments."

"Wonderful." Gru smiled. "And will it work?"

"If it doesn't, I'll work for you at half my normal rates." Nefario scoffed. "And I'll throw in this mission for free."

"I think that this will be the beginning of a _beautiful_ friendship." Gru smiled.

.

The minions scampered under the command of their beloved master and his guest, putting together a complex piece of apparatus.

"Where did you come up with the idea for this?" Gru asked and Nefario shrugged.

"Captured technology from the destroyed ship of a being calling himself Galaxar… or something like that." Nefario replied as several large devices were levered into place. "The hard part was re-configuring it to run on electricity rather than Quantonium."

Gru looked at the nearly-complete device, then at the Minions.

"Which Minion do we clone?"

"Why, _all_ of them." Nefario chuckled, then he caught Gru's questioning look. "If we wanted three hundred copies of just one, we'd need that damned blue-glowy stuff, but one copy each of three hundred? _No_ problems!"

"Splendid." Gru gloated. "Splendid.

.

At long last, the machine was complete and the DNA strands from the Minions were inserted.

"At last!" Gru declaimed as his audience cheered and the thunderclouds rumbled up above. "We will increase our army and take over America, and then… THE WORLD!"

The cheering of the Minions was almost solid and Gru turned to where Dr. Nefario was fussing over his control podium.

"Ready?"

"Ready!" Nefario grinned.

"Then, Dr. Nefario, pull the lever!"

To a round of near-frantic cheering, Nefario pulled the main switch and the machine taking up almost three-quarters of the lair rumbled into motion, the first set of cylinders descending and flashing with a brilliant light before lifting to reveal the new Minion clones, each barely the size of Gru's fist.

"Activating the vitamin infusion ray and the temporal enhancer!" Dr Nefario called out and the second device swung into position, the flux capacitor flashing as it began to modify the time-space continuum within its area of effect.

"Yes, yes, YES!" Gru gloated, then the world suddenly turned white.

.

"…what happened?" Gru asked as he opened his eyes to find himself lying in bed, swathed with bandages.

"We forgot to install a lightning rod." Nefario groaned from next to him. "I have no idea what happened when the flux capacitor was overloaded, but we won't be able to rebuild it since the capacitor overloaded."

"Drat." Gru cursed as he slumped back into the comforting embrace of his bed.

.

**A Hundred Million Years Ago…**

.

Time and space seemed to warp and flex into a pretzel before several hundred yellow forms landed on the beach. As they picked themselves up and looked around for the one that they had imprinted on, their attention was captured by the sight of the ocean.

"Oooooooh…"

Temporarially casting aside their need to find their creator, they scurried into the surf and began splashing each other.

They would _know_ their master when they found him.

No matter how long it took.

.

.

.

.

.

_Afternote - There were two shout-outs in the story,_Back To The Future_ and _Monsters Vs Aliens_.  
Kudos to those who noticed them without needing this note._


	9. Runner - Worm

Wildbow owns Worm and all characters therein.  
Random Alt-power!Taylor

Runner

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 3 of Taylor Hebert._

This sucks.

Seriously, I get locked in my own locker, along with a pile of used tampons and other crap, trigger, and what power do I get?

Flight.

For four seconds.

I can fly for four seconds, then the power fades and I fall.

It's official.

The universe hates me.

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 6 of Taylor Hebert._

Okay, maybe it doesn't suck as badly as I thought.

Turns out that as long as I'm touching something fairly rigid and attached to the ground, I can fly for as long as I want.

Nope, still sucks.

"Hey, it's Flies-As-Long-As-She's-Holding-Onto-Something-Girl!"

Yep.

Still sucks.

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 8 of Taylor Hebert._

Parkour.

I saw a video of it, runners leaping over buildings and cars, somersaulting…

I'm going to test something…

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 9 of Taylor Hebert._

Holy Shit!

Okay, my power? Only four seconds of flight? Turns out it recharges _instantly_ whenever I touch the ground or something solid that's fixed to it (so no, cars don't count, I checked).

Gets better. I tested myself on the school running track last night after using my power to vault over the fence (gotta work on my landings, though…) and I can actually move faster than I thought! I fly _as_ I run, all I need to do is move my feet fast enough to tap the ground without catching!

Okay, now to try and work out what the heck to do with it…

Edit – It's a size thing. It recharges on lorries. WTF?

Edit 2 – Ooooookay, I get _eight_ seconds if I'm running over water. How does this even make sense?

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 12 of Taylor Hebert._

Well, looks like my power comes with a couple of perks I hadn't realized. As well as flight, I can impart kinetic energy to other things… provided I'm not in contact with the ground. Weird, I know, but cool. I jump-kicked a mugger out of an alley, sent him almost to the other side of the road!

Shame I couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe I need to work on my repartee.

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 15 of Taylor Hebert._

Hahahahahahaha!

Sophia's face as I lapped her on the track!

The Coach wanted to put me on the team, but I turned him down. It didn't feel right, using my power to cheat my way into people's good graces, but a least I'd pre-scripted a good excuse.

Worried about Sophia trying to pull me into the lesbian relationship that she and… _Her_ have…

*Snerk*

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 18 of Taylor Hebert._

Fuck!

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!

God-_damn_ Sophia!

Fucking _bitch_ knocked me _over_ the railings of the cental staircase… from the _third_ floor!

Thank god for my power, but now everyone thinks I'm a secret _acrobat_!

Okay. I need more information about her. No way she's normal if she's willing to kick someone down a stairwell…

.

_Heroic Journal Entry 19 of Taylor Hebert._

Sophia Hess.

Shadow Stalker.

Just…

…fuck.

.

_Villainous Journal Entry 1 of Taylor Hebert._

Hah!

Now you know what it feels like to be kicked off a roof, Hess! Sure, your powers saved you, as I knew they would, but I hope that bruise stays for weeks!

Note – I'm slightly concerned that I'm enjoying this too much…

.

_Villainous Journal Entry 4 of Taylor Hebert._

Emma, Emma, Emma. Leaving your bedroom window open _and_ a copy of Hess' patrol schedule?

I hope you enjoy the grass snake I slipped into your bed. It won't hurt you, but I remember how freaked you were by them as a kid.

Hess, you're next.

.

_Villainous Journal Entry 5 of Taylor Hebert._

Bwahahahahahahaha!

Oh man. Oh man, oh man. If only I could have seen the look on her face as I hurdled the edge of the roof and splatted her with the whipped cream pie.

One word, Hess. Lenses. You may want to put some in your mask.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

.

_Villainous Journal Entry 8 of Taylor Hebert._

Okay, I may be a criminal, but a gang setting out to kill kids? Not cool.

Thank goodness for my jump-kick skill. I think I got at least five of the Bad Boyz before Armsmaster arrived and tried to arrest me.

I wonder if I can claim partial credit for taking down Lung? True, it was an accident, I didn't mean to KO him with one of his own people, but…

Ah, what the heck.

.

_Villainous Journal Entry 11 of Taylor Hebert._

It seems my takedown of Lung had gained me some admirers.

They call themselves the Undersiders and they want me to join them.

Should I? I'm _undecided_…

*Snerk*

.

.

PRT File 845HG67PP1

Codename - Runner

Gender – Unknown

Age – Unknown (Estimated 15 – 21)

Rating – Mover 6

Power description – Ability to run on any surface.

Notes – Runner is a lanky individual with the ability to run on any surface, irrespective of the angle. Runner has been seen sprinting up the sides of buildings, walking along the underside of a bridge and even sprinting across the water between sections of the Boardwalk.

Runner seems to also be able to deliver powerful kicks, but the targets do not show evidence of impact consistent with the impulse they undergo.

Runner came to prominence with a series of attacks on Shadow Stalker. Although the first confirmed one was the Hill Street Pie Incident (See Here for details), the continuing focus Runner shows in targeting Shadow Stalker suggests that the previous incident where Shadow Stalker was kicked off a roof may also be ascribed to Runner.

Runner's affiliations are unknown, but after the Lung Capture (See Here for details), it is confirmed that Runner is not a member of the ABB.

Actions – Runner is to be captured if possible. Normal techniques will not work due to Runner's enhanced mobility, so upon confirmation of Runner's presence, Velocity and Clockblocker are to be dispatched to intercept.

Shadow Stalker is to be investigated to uncover the reason for Runner's continuing harrasment of her.

See Also – Hill Street Pie Incident, Paintpot Incident, Wet Towel Incident, Ankle Noose Incident, Water Pistol Incident, Sawn Plank Incident


	10. Guyver Worm

_Author's note – The first part has already been used by me in Guyver Naruto, but it can work as a set-up for so many different universes…_

.

**Guyver Worm**

**Archanfel**

.

_Archanfel lowered his weapon and stared emotionlessly at the ashes that had been the test subject prior to it donning the armour. His cape fluttering in the breeze caused by the superheated air rising to make way for cooler air, he turned back to face his masters, the beings who used the armour that they had tested on one of those he had been created from, beings who had lost an entire command ship and no less than four defence ships to a single, untrained primitive from the native species that they had adjusted to create an army that they could command._

_**This must not be allowed to happen again.**_

_Archanfel didn't respond as the mental communication had not been aimed at him. Instead, he de-powered his weapon before shifting his grip on it, raising it above his head so that it could be reclaimed. As it was lifted out of his hands, Archanfel felt… _something_, sense of loss… of _potential_._

_**New weapons will be forged. Ones that cannot use the suits.  
**__**What happened today was… not as anticipated.**_

"_Guyver." Archanfel whispered, giving the thought its closest approximation in the limited form known as speech._

_**Prepare the Grand Hammer for deployment and evacuate the planet. Leave whatever cannot be taken within the four-day, we must depart.**_

_Archanfel blinked as the Advent floated away towards the distant ships, then he turned and looked at the distant shape of the damaged ship that was sinking into the lava, its self-repair systems already working to seal the hull. Nearby lay the unit that had granted the deceased primitive powers beyond the Advent and Archanfel began moving towards it, then he froze as a bolt of lightning from the clouds forming above lanced down and struck it. For a moment, it glowed like an earthbound sun, then it seemed to vanish as its dimensional storage systems overloaded and Archanfel felt another emotion._

_Anger/Irritation._

_The ground trembled as the first ship of the Advent lifted off and Archanfel watched them leave. Motionless, he waited for the last of his former masters to depart, uncaring that the process took over five days, and only then did he begin to move._

_The ship that had been destroyed had been the one holding all of the records about where the caches of technology had been placed ready for use in building outposts. He had only learned the locations of five of them and several had probably been retrieved, but as long as at least one remained intact, he could use it as the base of his plans._

_If any of the other units had been left in one of the caches, he would find it and would claim the power for himself. He would create weaker versions and use them to build his own army, his chosen ones leading the primitives to the stars, unleashing them against the Advent and seizing all that had once made them great._

_But he could not do it alone._

_He would need assistants. Helpers. Beings that he could empower so that they would be able to oversee events for him._

_A slight movement in the skies above him caught his attention and, gathering his willpower, Archanfel rose into the skies, ascending into orbit with practiced ease even as his eyes searched for what had…_

There_!_

_A massive meteor, easily large and fast enough to ruin the planet… _his_ planet, should it hit!_

_The odds of such an event occurring briefly crossed his mind, then he realised that it had been dispatched by the Advent, that the beings on the world below him would never become a threat._

_That his plans, embryonic though they still were, would never come to be._

_This could not be allowed._

_Archanfel closed his eyes in concentration, although his senses could still feel the approaching planet-killer from its very mass. Calling upon all his reserves and channelling all the power of his twelve crystals, he unleashed it in a blast of ravening gravitonic fury that lanced out and slammed into the meteorite._

_For almost a full day, Archanfel maintained the blast, slowly ripping the meteorite apart before he finally felt its central neutronium core dissipate. Drained and exhausted, Archanfel let himself descend into the atmosphere once more, realising that although he had save the origin of his eventual triumph, the cost had been high._

_One of his crystals was cracked and he could feel it sapping his energy._

_For the first time since he had been created, Archanfel knew what it was like to be tired._

.

* * *

**Worm**

.

It was official, yesterday had sucked.

Sophia had decided to pick up the bullying again. I'd hoped that the damned Locker would have persuaded them to back off a bit for fear of someone in authority actually doing their damned jobs for once, but I was wrong. I managed to overhear her as she gave four boys who were besotted with her some duct tape and instructions to use it to tie me to a pole. Then she spotted me and I ran. Naturally, she gave chase, but one of the boys must have kicked her foot by accident or something, because as I darted round the corner, I caught a glimpse of her falling.

Of course, the boys kept coming after me and I had to run for _ages_ to escape. Finally, I lost them by hiding in one of the odd places that marked where the freelance parahumans known as Faultline's Crew had been operating.

Although I generally don't follow cape news that much, even I knew about Labrynth. One of Faultline's operatives, she could apparently unfold imaginary locations into reality or something like that, and she didn't always fold them back.

And this one looked… rather plain, actually. A copse of cherry trees with a small stream-bed and a wooden bridge over it.

Hearing the sound of distant voices, I ducked into one of the low bushes and paused. Half-embedded in the ground was an odd circular device. The device was an odd blue-green and trilaterally symmetrical which what appeared to be armoured panels over a coil of cables which held a metal sphere in the middle.

Odd.

I reached out carefully and tapped the edge, then the central sphere. Nothing happened, so I took a small breath and reached out to pull it out of the ground. After all, the PRT ran a bounty for tinkerteck that was handed in to it and despite Dad not saying anything, I knew that we were hurting for money.

Taking a strong grip, I pulled hard. The device came loose with surprising suddenness and I toppled out of the bush, the device banging my forehead as I tried to roll to my feet and only succeeded in sprawling. For a moment, I thought that my vision was blurring, then I realized that I had somehow activated the device and the coils inside it were moving.

"Oh shi…"

.

.

I opened my eyes and looked round in confusion. I was outside my house, but in the back yard.

How?

Was the device a teleporter or something?

Pulling myself to my feet, I fumbled for my keys and let myself inside.

A nice cup of tea seemed just the thing.

.

.

_Partial transcript of interview with Shadow Stalker (Sophia Hess)  
__Interview conducted by Armsmaster (Colin Wallis)  
__Witnessed by Battery (-classified-)_

_**A:**__ Time is now six forty two PM, location is interview room seven. This is Armsmaster acting as primary interviewer._

_**B:**__ This is Battery acting as witness._

_**SS:**__ Shadow Stalker. What the hell was that thing, anyway?_

_**A:**__ We will get to that. You were in the area when the unknown Tinker appeared. Please describe him for the record, along with any other observations that you made._

_**SS:**__ Seriously? You got pictures of the damn Tinker and you want me to…_

_**B: **__(Interrupting) It's protocol, I have to do similar things._

_**SS:**__ Right. Fuck. Alright. Ummmm, armor. Never seen anything like it before, not metal. Looked kinda like an insect. Odd eyes and weird circles in the gaps of the helmet, they seemed to move like eyes or something. Freaky. Ummmm, the mouth had two silver orbs, one above the other, blades on its arms and one on its helmet… cannons in its chest._

_**A:**__ For the record, please explain how you know about the cannons._

_**SS:**__ 'cause I saw fucking HOOKWOLF try to attack it! Bug-armor guy just backhanded him into a tree, then pulled open half his chest and fired a goddamn ray of death at the fucking nazi!_

_**B:**__ Stalker, calm down…_

_**A:**__ For the record, the unknown Tinker managed to kill Hookwolf. DNA tests on the few portions of him left after the attack prove that it was him._

_**SS:**__ Yeah, fucker was just vaporized. The blades left over, damn things were glowing. I think a few even melted. I almost felt sorry for that Nazi._

_**A:**__ Then what happened?_

_**SS:**__ You showed up, tried to talk to him and he just flew off. I couldn't do anything and I wasn't even in my uniform, so I left and came straight here._

_**A:**__ For the record, that was the correct decision given the circumstances._

_**SS:**__ …gee, thanks._

.

.

I still had no idea of what had happened to that disc, but in retrospect, it was probably something made by L33T.

That was a scary thought. I'd heard tales of how L33T-tech kept exploding.

It had affected me, though. I was faster and stronger. Not all that much, but I could jump half-again as far (and high) and my arms were more than strong enough to let me pull myself up walls without getting tired.

It really was a boon for my patrolling. Coupled with my bugs (and somehow, I was actually _seeing_ through their eyes… L33T's tech seemed to have boosted my range to almost four blocks), I could find trouble and get to it quickly.

It wasn't until I encountered Lung that I discovered what else it had done.

.

"…and if any of them go down, double-tap them to be sure. I want those kids dead!"

I hadn't caught most of Lung's speech, so I didn't know who he was referring to, but the important thing was that he had just declared he wanted to kill some children.

That wasn't right!

I knelt behind a chimney and concentrated. Every single bug in range started to gather, the flying ones swooping down to carry the ground-bound bugs. Wasps, flies, butterflies, spiders, roaches and many others all obeyed my call and within a moment, a swarm was coalescing above Lung and his minions.

The sheer mass of insects was enough to be audible because Lung looked up and peering round the chimney-stack, I saw him tense up.

"There's a Master nearby!" he roared, flexing his muscles. "Find him and bring him to me!"

I ducked back behind the chimney and unleashed my swarm on the ABB, spiders weaving thread to pin them as hornets stung and my other bugs covered them in a living carpet. The Black Widows I reserved for Lung. As a regenerator, I needed to take him down _fast_ or…

Oh hell.

I _felt_ the bugs swarming him blotted out in a wave of intolerable heat, then more of them died as he moved towards me.

How the hell did he know where I was? Had he spotted me ducking into cover?

A crunching noise snapped me back to reality and I threw myself into a roll as a huge fist shattered the stack I was sheltering behind. As the broken bricks landed behind me, I flipped myself to my feet and spun round…

…just in time to be slammed into the parapet as a large hand partially covers in scales closed around my neck and Lung's head loomed above me, his face warped enough that his metal dragon mask was now dangling over one ear, held by a single strap that was fraying even as I looked at it.

"''ooo ell eye!"

I tried to swallow, but Lung's hand, growing hotter by the second, prevented it.

They say that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes.

They're wrong.

It was just a word. One I'd never heard before, one that almost forced its way out of my throat.

"GUYVER!"

Lung's eyes widened an instant before a sphere of energy formed around me, knocking him backwards. Cables wrapped around my body and pulled armor plates out of thin air. My strength increased and my vision sharpened to the point that I could see every tiny pore on the portions of him not covered in scales.

Lung roard as the energy dissipated and dropped me back onto my feet. The feeling of energy snapping through me was indescribable and as I dropped into a basic defence stance, I could feel the blades on my arms start to vibrate, making a humming noise.

"You have a chest blaster!" A female voice shouted, causing both Lung and myself to half-turn to see a trio of quadrupedal monsters with four riders. The lone rider of the lead beast raised her hands to her mouth and shouted again.

"You just need to pull open your chest-plate and focus!" She yelled. "You've done it before! When you took out Hookwolf at the park!"

I blinked.

I had?

I mean, everyone was discussing the insect-themed tinker who had used his power armor to…

…armor…

…armor just like I was wearing…

…_my_ armor!

Reaching up, I found my fingers slipping smoothly into the space between my chestplates. Pulling gently, I felt it swing oipen and the energy flowing through me started to pool over my heart before lancing out and hitting Lung.

...holy crap!

As his smoking remains landed on the ground below, the girl called out again.

"Nice one, thanks for the assist! let's go!"

I glanced at their disappearing forms, then back down at the injured Lung, just as a motorbike pulled up beside him and the armored rider dismounted.

Armsmaster!

I wanted to stay, but I didn't know how long my power boost would last, so I turned and ran, launching myself off the roof and…

…wow!

I can fly!

"Wahoooooo!"

.

.

"_In the news today, the ABB suffered a severesetback with the capture of the parahuman criminal Lung. The man who once faced off against Leviathon and who faced down the Triumvirate in single combat was rushed to hospital with extreme injuries. Only the intervention of the healing cape Panacea saved his life._

"_Although Armsmaster was the one who brought in Lung, the cape who defeated the Dragon of Brockton Bay was the same Cape who killed the criminal known as Hookwolf._

"_A cape about whom almost nothing is known except for his name._

"_Guyver."_


	11. The Last Legionary In Brockton Bay

Just a little plot-bunny. Wildbow owns Worm while Douglass Hill is the creator of the Last Legionary.  
The part in bold is taken from Worm – Shell 4-7

.

**The Last Legionary In Brockton Bay**

Keill Randor was jolted into wakefulness as his starship bucked, hurling him out of his bunk. His reflexes let him twist enough to land on his feet even before his mind finished the process of recovering from the artificial hibernation that his telepathic alien companion Glr had placed him in for the journey to her home universe. Without wasting any time wondering what was going on, Keill raced to the cockpit and hurled himself into the pilots chair even as Glr finished stabilizing the ship.

"Glr, what happened?"

_I… I _think_ I know._ The winged alien replied from her hammock-perch, her mind-voice somehow sounding far more worried that Keill had ever heard before from her. _It's an old tale from my home-world, of giant parasites that swim through multiple realities and feast off the destruction of planets… I think our OverLight field just clipped one of them._

Keill nodded even as his fingers flickered over the levers and switches of the starship's extremely sensitive detection array. Although the controls themselves were virtually identical to the ones he had been trained on back when his home-world of Moros was still capable of supporting life, the systems that fed into the control panel were several generations beyond even the best available to anyone who was not allied to the now-defunct group known as the Overseers, scientists who had seen the rise of the One and it's empire and searched for a way to stop it.

A way known as Keill Randor, the Last Legionary.

Now, the sensors sampled portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, gravetic gradients and etheric phenomena so advanced that even Glr, several centuries old and from a race so advanced that humanity looked like fur-wearing primitives by comparison, couldn't describe it except through mathematical terms so complex that Keill got a headache within seconds of her beginning.

And what the sensors showed was almost unbelievable.

"Is that… Earth?" Keill asked in disbelief.

_It is._ Glr confirmed in just as much shock. _And Keill, we've gone back in time… and _sideways_. We're no longer in our own universe._

Keill nodded, then his gaze darted to a screen that had just flashed.

"What's that?"

_Something I have never seen before._ Glr replied. _I think we need to check it out. It may let us return to when… and _where_ we should be._

.

.

"**She's got enough raw firepower to kill us even if she misses," Grue shook his head, "We don't have many options. We go over this wall again, we won't just have to deal with the thugs and the old man. We go down either end of this alley, we're walking face first into a bomb. So we have to backtrack. No choice."**

**I wished there was another option. Backtracking meant moving back toward the center of the facility, it meant prolonging our escape, and possibly running headlong into ABB troops.**

**We headed for the gap that Bakuda's latest explosion had created in the lockers, and Grue filled the alley we were leaving with darkness, to help cover our escape. The little road was empty, except for the still figures at either end.**

**As we started to climb over the next row of lockers, we felt rather than heard a series of explosions rip through the area behind us. Bakuda was bombarding the cloud of darkness with a series of explosives. I guess you didn't need to see if you could hit that hard.**

**We climbed down from the lockers and found ourselves in the same place we'd been when we escaped the mob. There were three still figures at one end of the alley, doubtlessly a concealed bomb, and the destruction caused by the explosions and the miniature black hole in a can on the other. If we climbed over the locker, we faced the risk of throwing ourselves straight into the mob we'd fled. We'd have the element of surprise, but we'd be outnumbered, and our firepower was virtually nil.**

**By unspoken agreement, we headed towards the end of the alley where the hologram-bomb had gone off, where plumes of dust were still settling.**

**We were greeted by the sound of guns being cocked.**

**My heart sank. Twenty or so members of the ABB had guns of various sorts trained on us. Kneeling, sitting and crouching in front of the two groups, so they were out of the way of the guns and out of sight, were thirty or so other people Bakuda had 'recruited'. There was a businessman and a woman that could have been his wife, a girl wearing the Immaculata school uniform, from the Christian private school in the south end of the city, about my age. There were two older men, three older women with graying hair, and a group of guys and girls that might have been University students were standing together. Everyday people.**

**They weren't gang members, but I could think of them as her soldiers; Every one of them held a weapon of some sort. There were kitchen knives, baseball bats, pipes, shovels, two-by-fours, chains, crowbars and one guy even had a sword that was, oddly enough, not Japanese. There was a look of grim resignation on their faces, circles under their eyes that spoke of exhaustion, as they watched us.**

**Behind their assembled group, standing astride the Jeep, one foot resting on her modified jeep-mounted mortar launcher, an altered grenade launcher danging from one strap around her shoulders, was Bakuda. All around her were boxes of her specialized grenades and mortar rounds, bolted onto the back of the Jeep, blinking with various colored LEDs.**

**She put her hands on her grenade launcher as she tilted her head to one side. Her robotic voice crackled through the still air.**

"**Checkmate."**

"I don't think so!" A new voice stated as a small red rectangle about the side of a credit card sliced through the air and bounced underneath the jeep that Bakuda was perched on. An instant later, the Jeep was hurled into the air by an explosion, Bakuda flying off it, her limbs flailing and her bazooka arcing away.

The man who had saved us leapt down from the top of the wall he had been perched on, landing in a roll which turned into a spining kick that sent three of the ABB members onto the ground, his hands flickering in a move that sent another four staggering backwards.

However, it was Bakuda that I was staring at as she screamed and tried to retrieve her gas mask from the giant bat-like creature that had her mask in its claws and was hovering just above her, out of reach. A moment later, Bakuda collapsed.

What the heck?

_The one you seek is over there._ A not-voice echoed in my mind and I blinked as the knowledge of exactly where Bitch was unfolded in my mind. Behind me, Tattletale swore with feeling, but Grue was already on his way to retrieve her.

"So," the hunk in the blue jumpsuit said as he straightened up after knocking out the last of the ABB members. "Glr says that Bakuda has a deadman's switch on her linked to bombs she's implanted in these people's heads, so who do I hand her over to?"

I simply stared at him in shock.

Who was he?

_Keill Randor._ the not-voice supplied, laughter burbling in it. _You know, for a mudwalker, you're amazingly easy to talk to. I think I'll keep you._

Keill sighed. "Glr, we're _not_ taking her home with us."

_Awwwwwwww._


	12. Scales Of Injustice - Worm

_In Wildbow's Worm, it's indicated that the powers a Shard manifests is dependent on personality, circumstances and nearby active Shards (the latter allowing for a Ping effect that changes the supplied power somewhat._

_So I thought, what would happen if Taylor's Shard was a bit broader in "Ping" Radius and two other Capes were around as well as Sophia?_

_Of course, since "Being Taylor Is Suffering", I had to set up a screwed situation for her…_

_._

**Scales Of Injustice**

"So. Why have you not encouraged more to join?" Kenta rumbled threateningly, his already nerve-wracking presence magnified by the presence of his primary assassin, Oni Lee.

"Sir, it's tricky." Ahito tried to excuse himself. "Most of those who _want_ to join already have and… sir?"

Lung staggered, catching himself against the nearby wall and his head snapped round as Oni Lee pulled himself back up to his knees.

"A new Cape has appeared." He stated. "Find that cape. Now!"

Ahito sprinted into the school and Lung frowned.

"To have powers shaped by both yours and mine, Oni Lee… this Cape will be powerful. He will join us. I decree it!"

.

Emma frowned as her savior and role-model suddenly staggered, dropping to one knee.

"Sophia? What happened?"

Sophia used Emma's shoulder to pull herself back up to her feet, swearing.

"Sophia?"

"Come on!" Sophia growled, pulling Emma back to where they had shoved Emma's former friend into her waste-filled locker. "If I'm right, and I hope I'm not…"

Sophia slammed to a halt as they rounded the corner and Emma almost plowed into her as the shorter girl stared in horror at the straining locker door.

"What's happening?" Madison asked from behind them even as Sophia fumbled in her pocket for a phone. Before them, the door continued to bulge outwards, then it ripped itself out of its frame and a shape apparently formed from smokey-silver scales poured out of the locker, the thing obviously far bigger than the locker could have contained.

"Sophia?" Emma asked for the third time, terror evident in her voice despite her best efforts and ahead of them, a glowing golden eye opened, its slit pupil narrowing as its gaze transfixed them.

"She's a Cape!" Sophia shouted, causing the nearby pupils to stare at her rather than the uncoiling beast. "Hebert's Triggered!"

Emma stumbled backwards as Hebert continued to unfold herself, one claw-tipped foot crashing through a reinforced-concrete wall as if it had been nothing more than paper. Madison screamed and ran off, her action galvanising Sophia into hitting an app on her screen, then pushing past Emma as she also fled.

"Wait for me!" Emma screamed as she turned and ran from the person she had betrayed almost two years prior.

Sophia cursed as she ran for the stairs. If she could get to the janitor's room fast enough, she could retreive her spare costume _and_ the hunting bolts that she had stored in the small space behind the wall. If she could get a good shot off,she could take down Hebert _before_ the bitch used her newfound power to strike out at her. After all, that's what happened when the helpless got power, they lashed out at everyone who had kept them in their place to begin with.

As Sophia ducked into the office, her phone rang.

"Yes?" She snapped as she flung open the cleaning supplies cupboard.

"_You sounded the alert. What's happening?"_ Clockblocker's voice said, his normal (and extremely annoying) levity replaced by pure professionalism.

"Unknown Cape, destroying Winslow." Sophia half-lied as the sound of falling masonry and distant screams reached her. "I'm arming up, but I'll need backup, and lots of it. This new Cape's a frigging monster!"

"_Understood. Velocity is vectoring in now and Armsmaster is three minutes out."_

Another crash echoed and Sophia paused before _reaching_ through the base of the cupboard to pull out her uniform.

"There might not be a school left by then." She said before de-activating her phone. "Not that it'll be a disaster or anything. Fucking gangs are all over this shithole."

.

_I felt myself getting compressed as the locker tightened around me, then suddenly there was the sound of something tearing and I was free! The sudden light almost blinded me and I reflexively closed my eyes as I landed on the ground, my body absorbing the impact and coiling…_

…_wait._

…_what?_

_I concentrated on myself and for a long moment, I couldn't believe what I was feeling. My body had lengthened and become incredibly flexible, I could feel it pressing on itself as I slowly uncloiled. My limbs felt different, their joints had changed but at least I had the right number of fingers. the presence of two more limbs was a shock and from how one of them felt, trapped under me, I guessed it was a wing._

_Was I a… a _dragon_?_

_Shifting again to try and free my wing (and _that_ was a sentence I hadn't even considered using before now), I opened one eye to see if anyone had seen my…_

_Oh crap._

_The Trio._

_For what seemed like an eternity, all I could do was stare at them, then the discomfort of my position made itself felt once more. Reaching out, I tried to brace my hand against the wall so that I could…_

…_wow._

_The builders of Winslow _really_ skimped on quality control, didn't they?_

_Tearing my gaze away from the hole I had just made, I turned back to face my torme…_

_Where'd they go?_

_._

Velocity halted at the gates of Winslow, staring at the sight of a draconic tail slicing through the upper storey of Winslow, causing that part of the wall to fall outwards.

"Control, this is Velocity… we're going to need backup." He stated with the type of calm that only occurs when it's obvious that everything is about to go to hell. "Where's Armsmaster?"

The answer, if it came, was drowned out by a weird, undulating roar which in turn was the signal for the alarms to start ringing. Velocity dashed to one side as the panicked students flooded out of the building, then he saw a familiar figure vanish.

"Shit!" He cursed, keying his comm again. "Oni Lee confirmed on site! This might be the initiation of a new ABB cape!"

"_Understood, Velocity. Miss Militia is on her way, ETA five minutes. Armsmaster should be on site in two minutes. Assault and Battery will be heading out via copter in a few minutes."_

"Moving in now. Any other assets on the scene?"

"_Shadow Stalker has just indicated that she is costumed up and moving in."_

Velocity nodded. "Then I'm moving in to aid with evacuation."

.

_I twisted and finally managed to get my tail out from underneath me, only for the ceiling to land on me. What the heck was with this? I knew Winslow was bad, the events of the last two years had proven that beyond doubt, but for it to be falling apart like this?_

_A shrug of my shoulders and flexing of my wings pushed the debris off my back and I sighed in relief as sunlight finally started to warm my flex and I was finally able to stretch to full length as something bounced off my scales…_

_What?_

_Looking round, I caught a glimpse of movement and then another fast-moving thing bounced off my chest._

_Was that… Shadow Stalker?_

_Why was a Hero attacking me?_

.

Shadow Stalker ducked back into cover as her second bolt simply bounced off the scales of the monster that had once been the useless Taylor Hebert. Although she would under other circumstances be happy to admire the lethally-sharp claws and sparkling fangs of her adversary, the fact that it was the one who should rightfully be happy to lick her boots clean simply added more fuel to her rage. Slamming another bolt into her crossbow (and wishing that she had had the foresight to stash an auto-cocking one at Winslow rather than her old windlass one), she frantically cranked the handle, trying to ignore the growling snarl emitting from her target.

With the bolt finally in place and the string taut, Shadow Stalker activated her power, darting out of concealment to loose the bolt so that it would reform inside Taylor, hopefully forcing her to revert back to…

…_FUCK!_

How the _hell_ had the bitch _done_ that?

.

_The realization that Shadow Stalker was trying to actually_ kill_ me came with her third bolt, this one in shadow form. As it slipped through my scales, I could _feel_ its passage and that it was about to solidify inside me, then a reflex I didn't know I had activated and the world turned grey for an instant, all colour vanishing. The bolt skittered off the wall behind me as color returned._

_What the heck?_

_Had I just used Shadow Stalker's power?_

_What else could I do?_

.

"Fucker just countered me!" Shadow Stalker all but screamed into her microphone. "My bolts have no effect on it! No fucking effect!"

"_Copy that, Shadow Stalker. Drop back into support and let Velocity take lead."_

Shadow Stalker blinked behind her mask, then suddenly a clangour of metallic impacts sounded as Velocity blurred past her and attacked.

.

Grabbing a pipe that had been knocked out of the collapsing wall, Velocity _accelerated_ and ran up the almost-deserted stairs, easily dodging the few remaining students trying to make their way out of the building. Rounding the corner behind which Shadow Stalker had taken refuge behind, Velocity took in the size of the corridor-filling dragon that he was facing, a dragon thatwas showing a _lot_ of pointed teeth and sharp claws. Shifting his grip, he darted forwards and swung at the dragon's lower jaw, reducing his elapsed-time rate for a greater ability to deliver a solid hit. The steel pipe in his hands rang as he slammed it into the dragon's head, the impact almost causing him to drop it, but he persevered and delivered another dozen strikes before retreating.

"Fuck me." He whispered. "It didn't even daze it!"

.

_I blinked as for an instant, bells started to ring around me. The impacts were barely noticable and I looked round to see what was going on, then I spotted the one who had caused it._

_Velocity._

_Another Hero? What the fuck?_

_Was I going to end up fighting the entire Protectorate?_

_I needed to get out of there. Through the massive hole in the wall that I had created, I could see the Medhall Building and I thought longingly about hiding on it's roof until…_

_I blinked and looked round in shock._

_I was on Medhall's roof!_

_What. The. Hell?_

.

Sophia's jaw dropped as Hebert simply vanished with a sound similar to a quiet explosion. Her absence was reinforced by the sound of Armsmaster's bike pulling in through the gate outside.

"This isn't going to look good on our report." Velocity noted and Sophia bit down the urge to make a sarcastic reply.

"Console, be aware that the enemy Cape has disappeared, I repeat disappeared." Velocity stated, one hand cupped over his ear to indicate that he was using his comm. "High probability of teleportation."

Sophia scowled at the empty space where her target had been.

First it was that bastard Grue with his power that slowed her down and weakened her, now Hebert could do even worse.

The Bitch had just joined Grue on her _needs-to-be-killed_ list.

Now, how to report it so that Hebert's status as a villain would be beyond doubt?

And how to keep Hebert down? Direct attacks were out of the question, but…

…wait.

Sophia smirked with triumph. She _knew_ she'd hidden that gang-member's gun for a reason and now it was time.

She knew Hebert's address from Emma.

It would only take a single bullet…

And maybe a match or candle…

And after that, she could see about destroying the little that remained of Hebert's reputation.

.

.

PRT Internal Threat Assessment Report - Security Level 2 access required

**Protectorate ENE - Brockton Bay, New Hampshire  
Reporting Officer –** Velocity

**Codename:** Yazi

**Designation:** Independent Villain

**Identity:** Taylor Hebert (Orphan) (Publicly known)

**Appearance:** Yazi resembles a smokey-silver-colored winged chinese dragon over ten meters long (estimated, from nose to tail-tip) with five talons on each foot. Her eyes are golden in color with slit pupils.

**Brute 7:** Yazi was able to destroy reinforced concrete walls with ease and didn't bother to react to Velocity attacking her with a steel pipe.  
**Shaker 3+/-?:** Yazi is reported to be able to turn into a "ghost dragon" via intangibility. This is a solid counter to Shadow Stalker's power and as such, SS should not be deployed against Yazi if possible.  
**Mover 6+/-?:** Yazi disengaged from combat via teleportation. It is unknown what her range is at this time.  
**Changer 5+/-?:** Yazi's combat form may or may not be her default form.

**Profile:** According to records obtained from Winslow High School and which have been confirmed by Shadow Stalker (who attended the same school as her), Taylor Hebert was known to be an antisocial loner with a persecution complex who made multiple false allegations in an ongoing attempt to get attention. She occasionally resorted to self-inflicted injuries to seek sympathy, but such events were rare due to her low pain threshold.

Taylor Hebert's grades at Winslow were significantly below average, putting her in the lower twentieth of the school. Earlier records indicate that she was either specially tutored or highly intelligent at the time of joining Winslow, but the steady decline in her grades indicates that the former is the most likely.

At this time, a Thinker rating is seen as non-applicable.

Taylor Hebert's mother, Anette Hebert was a former follower of Lustrum who died several years ago in a car crash. Although apparently an accident, Taylor's Triggering indicates that Annette may have been one of Lustrum's Capes prior to the organisation disbanding. Potential identities are Castrator, Woman's Fist, Mother's Wrath or DoubleX.

Taylor Hebert's father, Danny Hebert (see also Dockworkers Union) was killed by an unknown person the night his daughter Triggered, killed by a single bullet to the head and the house subsequently set on fire in an attempt to hide the evidence. Until further notice, Taylor Hebert is to be assumed to be the perpetrator. Evidence provided by civilian Emma Barnes (friend of Sophia Hess and one-time friend of Taylor Hebert) indicates the possibility of sexual abuse.

**Notes:** At this time, a Kill Order is not authorised, but should Yazi try to resist capture by means of violence, lethal force has been authorised.

.

.

Thomas Calvert read the data appreciatively. Although a twenty-meter-long dragon would be hard to hide, she would be quite a force-multiplier for his cats-paw team, even if she didn't have any other powers than that which she had shown. And with her being both an orphan and a wanted criminal, there wouldn't be anywhere she could really hide without being discovered and forced to flee.

Coil leaned back and steepled his fingers in thought, then he pulled his mask on and picked up the phone, scrolling through to a specific number.

"Ah, Sarah." He said as soon as the phone on the other end was picked up. "I have a mission for you. See what you can discover about this new cape, Yazi, and try to come up with a way to get her onto your team…"

"Why yes, I think that her demonstrated abilities will mesh _wonderfully_ with your team's."

.

.

Max Anders gazed thoughtfully at the pictures on his desk. several of them showed a black-haired teenage girl, half-hunched against the blows that the world kept landing on her, every part of her body language screaming depressed defiance and a belief that things would never improve.

The final couple of pictures, taken by those who were seeking to join the ranks of the glorious E88, showed her new form, that of a silvery dragon effortlessly destroying the building she was in.

"While her form is unfortunate in its connotations, her power more than makes up for it." Kaiser finally decided.

"According to a statement released by the PRT, this Taylor Hebert is a villain." Victor noted from his desk in the corner. "Her mother's been linked to Lustrum and was probably a Cape too."

"A Second Generation Cape." Max mused. "And with such a power set. Even if she could only teleport one person with her at a time, it would totally change the course of battle and if her powers are even more… we must find her. Find her and recruit her. Maybe through her family?"

"She's an orphan." Victor supplied, still scrolling through the data on his computer. "Her father died the day she triggered, but that wasn't the reason. He died _after_. Bullet in the head and then the house set on fire."

"Find out who did it." Kaiser snapped. "I don't care _who _it was, just find out. If we can offer her revenge…"

Victor nodded in understanding.

"It shall be as you will."

.

Lung looked at the pictures that one of his lieutenants had placed on the desk in front of him.

"She was not asian." He noted, picking up the first picture, then igniting it with a flexing of his power. "It matters not. Her true form is all that matters. She is a dragon, she is now asian!"

"Her father was recently killed, Lung-Dono." The Lieutenant reported. "She is an orphan… my people are still searching for clues as to who killed him."

Lung nodded. "Good! We can bring her to our side by offering her vengeance. I approve! But her name… is there any evidence that she has indeed learned how to kill?"

"Aside from her father's death, which we do not believe to be due to her actions, no."

"Then why name her after a dragon which brings death?" Lung muttered. "Go. I wish to know more."

"As you command, Lung-Dono."

.

"You asked for a meeting, Director?"

Emily Piggot nodded and waved for her guests to be seated. In preparation for this meeting, extra chairs had been brought in and she watched as the people she had summoned sat down.

"I assume that you are aware of the newest Cape in Brockton Bay?" She asked and Lady Photon nodded.

"We are."

"Then you know that as the PRT have only a few fliers. Dauntless is our only PRT flier in Brockton Bay and while Aegis and Kid Win are both flight-capable, I would much prefer for them to avoid being anywhere near Yazi at this time, especially since Aegis lacks the power to take her down while Kid Win's reliance on technology would be incredibly easy for her to counter."

Several of the New Wave members nodded in understanding.

"Since she has wings, we are assuming that Yazi _can_ fly, so we need fliers who also pack a strong attack." Piggot continued. "Unfortunately, the strongest flying blaster in Brockton Bay happens to be on the wrong side."

"Purity." Brandish growled and Emily nodded.

"Correct. Lady Photon, the PRT are interested in temporarily deputizing you, Laserdream and Glory Girl to back up Dauntless as the aerial component of the task force we are going to assemble to take down Yazi. We will be happy to provide you with secure communicators for the entire team but we will expect your three to join Dauntless for training at least once every three days."

"But we already _know_ how to use our powers!" Victoria Dallon burst out ad Emily hid a sigh.

"Individually, yes. But what about together? Do you practise moving in formation? Have you a set pattern for Laserdream to fire her beams in so that you can approach your target under their protection? Do you know the difference between a breakout and a diversion?"

As each question was fired at her, Victoria wilted and Lady Photon nodded.

"Your points are well taken, Director. Very well… we accept. You have your air support."

.

_The sunlight lanced in through the open hatch of the ship that I had turned into my lair, bouncing off the inside of the hull, warming me despite the dampness of the air and filling me with energy._

_As the sun illuminated the clouds in shades of red, my mind flashed back to the sight of my home burning, a black shadow flitting away from It as the flames finished engulfing the structure and the smoke rising to form a pillar which, when I flew through it, held the faint scent of burning flesh._

_With the last of my family dead, I flew away, seeking a place where I could mourn, a place I found on the furthest ship in the Boat's Graveyard, a ship grounded on a rocky shoal and which remained fairly untouched as none could reach it on foot._

_Ripping out most of the inner partitions had taken several days, especially since I had to do it quietly, but the result was a space where I could stretch out or curl up as the urge took me and using one of the bits of metal as an impromptu mirror, I could see the Medhall building, allowing me to _jump_ to it and with my enhanced vision allowing me to see the mirror from there, I could _jump_ back into the hold with no sign of my passage._

_Now that I had a safe place for myself, I could move on and find out just who had killed my father._

_And when I located that person, they would learn why one should not anger a dragon…_

_Of course, things would be easier if I could actually _speak_!_

_I wonder what they're saying on PHO right now?_

.

.

Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards  
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Topic: A Wild Dragon Appears!  
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

.

TheGrinningWriter (Original Poster)

So, we have another Cape in Brockton Bay and it started out by demolishing Winslow High School! Not that I can blame it, the place really is the classic hive of scum, villainy and gang recruitment.

The actual damage to the school is surprisingly low (little more than a corridor and a classroom or two) but as for _what_ caused it…

**[Link][Link][Link][Link][Link]**

Yep, that's a Dragon!

Word on the street is that the identity of the new dragon is publicly known. Hell, I know it, but out of respect for the Board's rules, I'm not going to post it and neither should you. So, the new cape destroyed part of the school, apparently fought off Velocity and Shadow Stalker and then vanished.

How the hell does a fifty-meter dragon just vanish?

Comments please!

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(Viewing page 1 of 215)

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► XxVoid_CowboyxX

[Post deleted]

**[Until the cape in question is officially named, the assumption is that they are **_**not**_** to be named. Have a seven-day ban to think about your actions and just remember you are crunchy and might taste good with ketchup! – TinMother]  
**.  
► ImpossibleGolfer

XxVoid_CowboyxX – Dammit, Void! The OP _said_ not to name the Cape!

Edit – Wow, Strangered by TinMother already! Nice one TM!

.  
► Bagrat (The Guy In The Know)

I was just in the middle of starting a similar thread when TGR posted this one. It isn't often that I'm beaten to the punch.

What I know is speculative as heck, but my contacts in the PRT say that there'll be a statement tomorrow at noon.

in the meantime, the new Cape has been given the Codename Yazi. For those who are interested, a Yazi is a type of Dragon that loves to kill, so you can see how dangerous they think she is.

Current classification is villain with a note that non-capes should steer clear of her. Preliminary ratings are something like Brute 6, Changer 5, Shaker 4, Mover 7 (unconfirmed at this time). If true, that's one hell of a grab-bag. Mover 7 for instance means more than simply flight.  
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► TheGrinningWriter (Original Poster)

Bagrat – Thanks, dude. You got more than I had. Brute 6, huh? Given the damage she caused, I can see that.

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► AllSeeingEye

If she's that powerful, the gangs will be fighting for the right to count her as one of their own. Whichever one gets her will get one heck of a boost.

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► WalksInTheShadows (Verified PRT Agent)

Thanks. Just when I thought the Bay couldn't get any scarier…

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► TheOnlySainMan

It's a sign! Three Dragons now walk the Earth! When the fourth one comes, it'll mark the Apocalypse!

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► WalksInTheShadows (Verified PRT Agent)

…wot

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► PartiesLikeTheresNoTomorrow

Ignore him. So. Flying Dragon That Kills. As if Fiery Rage Dragon wasn't bad enough.

I'm seriously considering moving.

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► InnocentCriminal

Judging from those pictures, I don't think that she's fifty meters. From the spacing of the windows on the floor below and where you can see her head and tail, I'd say somewhere between 15 and 25 meters depending on how she's standing…

...and this was not a sentence I ever expected to type.

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**(Viewing page 42 of 215) **

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►MartiansAreAwesome

Look, we've been arguing in circles and until more information is released, we aren't going to get any further.

.  
► Bagrat (The Guy In The Know)

Ask and you shall receive! Here is a [Link] to the PRT statement but briefly, Yazi is Taylor Hebert, both parents deceased and a second-gen cape whose mother worked for Lustrum.

Oh, and the ratings are currently Brute 7, Shaker 3, Mover 6, Changer 5.

.  
► Aegis (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Okay, us wards have been released to post on this thread now that we don't have to keep quiet. Most of the info is in the release, so let's not rehash it. However, you may be interested to know that New Wave has received PRT-approved comms in light of the threat that Yazi presents. Good thing too, I don't want to face her without some serious backup.

.  
► GloryGirl (Verified Cape)

What Aegis hasn't mentioned is that Aunt Sarah, Crystal and myself are part of a team being trained to take that flying lizard down. With Dauntless, Aegis and Kid Win, we'll be able to smack her right back to where she belongs!

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► AllSeeingEye

Okay, I've gone back through the thread and just why is Yazi a criminal? Far as I can tell, all she's done is less damage than Gloryhole in one of her rampages, defended herself against a pair of so-called Heroes attacking her without attempting communication and become an orphan. What part of that necessitates the smack-down?

.  
► TheGrinningWriter (Original Poster)

Re-check the fourth picture. See the guy in the corner?

.  
► ImpossibleGolfer

Holy $%^&amp;! That's Oni Lee! What the fuck is _he_ doing at Winslow?

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► WritesAndPaints

Perhaps he's a substitute teacher there? According to my cousin, several of them are total douchebags, especially the ones who try to be popular.

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► WalksInTheShadows (Verified PRT Agent)

Our original assumption was that it was part of her initiation into the ABB. However, our sources have told us that Yazi isn't currently a member. Nevertheless, the presence of Oni Lee is highly suspicious and cannot be ignored.

.  
► AllSeeingEye

Any idea if Lung was there too? I expect that he was since it's a well-known phenomenon that when a Cape Triggers, their powers can be shaped somewhat by nearby Capes. Let's see, dragon form from Lung, teleportation from Oni Lee and intangibility… Shadow Stalker perhaps? Her powers may be _because_ those Capes were there, in which case, what was Shadow Stalker doing meeting with Lung?

.

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**(Viewing page 215 of 215) **

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► Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

HighlyStrung – No, I don't have any idea either. However, it doesn't change the fact that Yazi tried to attack us last Saturday. I have never been more terrified in my life and I've faced Hookwolf! Thank god for New Wave!

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► GloryGirl (Verified Cape)

Vista – You're welcome. Although it did seem that Yazi was targeting Shadow Stalker. Any clue as to why? Other than her charming personality, that is?

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	13. Scales Of Injustice 2

_Part 2, since I may have been a bit too mean to Taylor in Part 1..._

**Scales Of Injustice – A New Balance**

Emily Piggot stared in bemused horror at the pile of reports in front of her, then she looked up to where Miss Militia was stood over the twitching form of Shadow Stalker.

"Okay." She sighed after a long moment. "Just why did you see fit to break into my office mid-debriefing and taze her? Not that I have any doubt her personality alone would be reason enough, but…"

"Triumph's cousin triggered recently." Miss Militia stated, earning a raised eyebrow. "She somehow found Yazi…"

"How bad's the damage?" Piggot sighed, only to pause as Miss Militia shook her head.

"It's worse than that. About Yazi… we were wrong. We were _all_ wrong…"

.

_Dinah Alcott climbed up the anchor chain, the small dinghy she had _borrowed_ tied to the lowest link. Soon, she was at the gap where the chain fed out and she squirmed through, noting that had she been any larger, she wouldn't have been able to fit._

_Pulling herself to her feet, she made her way to the central hatch and looked down, seeing a pair of reptilian eyes looking up at her._

"_Hello, Taylor." She said calmly. "I need your help. I ran the numbers and you're the only one who can save me…"_

.

"Her name's Dinah Alcott, she's a precog who gives answers in percentages." Miss Militia stated. "She managed, somehow, to find Yazi and from there, Quinn Calle. They got Yazi's statement of what happened to cause her to Trigger… and _who_…"

Piggot followed Miss Militia's glare to the Ward lying, moaning, on the carpet.

.

_The well-groomed man took a picture of the words that Taylor had written in the sand, then looked up at the former teenage girl._

"_Although outing Capes is normally seen as a violation of the Unwritten Rules, I can see several ways round that." He said thoughtfully. "I will ask you _not_ to try to attack Sophia Hess again, even though you saw her departing from the scene of your father's murder."_

_Taylor nodded slowly, then growled inquisitively and Calle gave a thin smile._

"_She's already got a body count. The PRT forced her to join as they thought she could be useful, but win a case like this? They'll jettison her faster than you can say _bad publicity_. Now, I know someone who can get those e-mails for us, but I'll need your login for that."_

_Taylor nodded again, already starting to engrave words with one of her talons while Dinah looked on with satisfaction._

.

"Fortunately for us, Calle's chosen not to go public immediately." Hannah continued. "However, I've had to call Glenn Chambers in. The potential PR disaster is… well, Glenn turned _white_ when he read the messages."

Emily felt as if her eyes were about to fall out of her head, her eyes were so wide. Glenn Chambers was unflappable under both normal circumstances and everything short of actually being in an Endbringer attack (which had only happened once and he had recovered within an hour of being taken to safety). Anything that made _him_ blanch was to be feared indeed.

"What the fuck was…" Sophia slurred from the floor, only to spasm as Hannah used her tazer again.

"So… _how_?"

"Bullying for over a year, closer to two. Her and two others, at least one of whom knows she's a Cape." Hannah growled. "Yazi spotted her fleeing from the Hebert's house as it burned down and given that Taylor had stored several books there in which she had recorded the campaign of bullying that she had been subjected to… that's both murder _and_ attempting to pervert the course of justice. In addition, going back over the records shows that it was her who designated Yazi as hostile to begin with."

Emily lowered her face into her hands.

"So, let me get this straight." She said, her voice slightly muffled. "Hess bullied Taylor Hebert into Triggering, managed to set us against her before we'd had a chance to assess the situation, killed Taylor's dad, burned down his house and generally did her best to hide how much she'd fucked things up for us?"

"I'm afraid so, Director. Our lawyers are already starting damage control but right now? We're over a barrel and Calle _knows_ it."

The door to the office opened and an armoured figure stepped in, moving round Miss Militia and kneeling down next to the still-twitching Ward, fastening a thick bracelet around her left wrist.

"Armsmaster?" Emily prompted as he stood up.

"My apologies, I needed to build the cuff before I could secure her." Colin stated. "It contains a power cell taken from one of my older halberds, a tracking beacon, a charged coil of wire to prevent Miss Hess from utilising her changer form and a remote-operated micro-tazer so that Miss Militia may be spared for other duties. I have uploaded a control-app for the cuff to your phone."

Emily bit down on the near-reflexive snark that seemed to bubble to the surface whenever she had to interact with the antisocial Tinker and simply pulled out her phone to check. Sure enough, a new symbol flashed on her screen and she hid a smile as she saw a small picture of Shadow Stalker's mask surrounded by static-charged hair and stylised lightning bolts.

"Interesting choice of symbols."

"I asked Dragon to help with the coding while I constructed the hardware."

"Ah." Emily nodded as Hannah giggled at her phone's newest App. "Of course."

.

.

"…_and as a result of the initial misunderstanding snowballing, the PRT mistakenly concluded that Miss Hebert was a criminal when in fact, the reverse was the case."_ Emily Piggot said from the television screen that Quentin Calle had set up so that his largest client could watch from the parking lot. _"To aid in making reparations, we have begun an investigation not only into how the starting events could have been so greviously misinterpreted, but also into the campaign of bullying which resulted in Miss Hebert's trigger. We have already made several arrests, including the person we believe to have been behind the death of Danny Hebert, Miss Hebert's father._

"_We at the PRT will ensure that recent events are learned from…"_

Quentin switched off the television and looked out of the window at Taylor, who had a totally unreadable expression on her draconic face.

"The PRT has agreed to pay three million dollars in damages as well as aid in prosecuting the three girls who were bullying you." He said with a triumphant smirk. "They've also indicated that they've arrested the one who killed your father and since that person is a Cape, they will be pushing for the Birdcage."

Taylor gave a slow nod, then an inquisitive sound.

"So, what do you want to do next?" Quentin asked and Dinah popped up to look at him from over Taylor's head.

"We want a tower." She stated and Taylor nodded. "And there's a 94.126 percent chance that you can see the advantages of co-operating with a pre-cog and a teleporting dragon."

"I can indeed." Quinn agreed and Taylor could almost see the aura of dollar signs surrounding him. "I can indeed…"

.

.

The students of Saint Mary's School scattered to the edges of the playing field as a long, sinuous shadow heralded the arrival of their most-newly-famous student and her bodyguard. Taylor touched down lightly and then coiled her tail round to provide Dinah with a platform to stand on once she finished unbuckling herself from the saddle. The young girl hopped onto the proffered tail and rode it down to ground level.

"Thank you." She said, giving the huge winged lizard a hug. "You have your phone on?"

Taylor nodded, motioning towards the side of her head where a small metallic shape was visible.

"Then I'll see you this afternoon." Dinah smiled. "There's a 0.104 percent chance that someone will try to kidnap me, so I think I'm fairly safe for now."

Taylor nodded, then spread her wings and leaped into the air, vanishing an instant later with the _clap_ of air rushing to fill the space that she had just vacated.

.

Thomas Calvert sighed as he re-watched the imagery. While having a pre-cog would be an incredible advantage to his plans, having a teleporting dragon out for his blood would be an even greater _dis_advantage. He had already tried twice and each time, his mercenaries had been caught by Yazi before they'd even managed to corner Dinah.

Sometimes, even the greatest prize had to be left unclaimed.


	14. Small Advantages 2 (cont from Ch7)

**Small Advantages 2**

**The Order Of The Shield**

Dad was quite surprised to learn that I was a Cape. In order to avoid worrying him, I carefully didn't tell him about how I now only interacted with the world using a puppet replica of my body, instead I explained how I could create a metal that I could use to build almost anything, such as the shields that I had been placing around Brockton Bay during my patrols, shields through which I could see what was happening and, via the dimensional links I maintained, could use to form my _Mercurius Bellator_ form.

He was also impressed when I admitted that I was the reason that half of the wrecks blocking the Docks had mysteriously vanished, meaning that the Docks could re-open for business.

Apparently the PRT had been going nuts trying to work out who had stolen the rusting hulks, and how.

Served them right for having _Hess_ in their ranks.

Of course, with Lung and Oni Lee captured and imprisoned, I found myself facing off against a new anemy.

The E88 were trying to expand.

.

"Halt, evil-doer!"

Even as I said it, I felt myself cringing. I sounded like Mouse Protector!

It worked, though. Kaiser turned to face me and for a moment, I contemplated how we looked similar in our shells of metal.

"Ah, you are the one who took down Lung." Kaiser noted as Hookwolf loped up to his side while in behind him, Frenja and Menja (I _really_ should have checked which was which…) stood weapons ready, almost twelve feet high.

"You realize you cannot win." Kaiser continued, waving at his followers. "It is a shame that you are not Aryan enough to be part of the superior race, but for your actions against the inferiors Lung and Oni Lee, I will let you leave unharmed. Leave and you will not be pursued."

I tapped into the Protectorate Data-net just long enough to learn that most of the PRT Capes were caught up in a series of battles against the other E88 Capes, then I grinned.

"I care not for those who claim superiority through an accident of genetics, especially when their own branch of humanity has significantly less genetic variance than that from which they descended. Nevertheless, I shall offer mercy to you. Surrender now and I shall see that you remain unharmed."

Kaiser shook his head and thrust his hand towards me. "You had a chance, now you shall die!"

I felt an odd ripple as his power tried and failed to gain purchase on the collection of nanomachines that I was piloting and Kaiser stepped back, somehow looking disconcerted despite his body-encompassing armor.

"My turn." I stated, widening the portal inside my puppet and pouring more nanomachines through it. It must have been quite a sight to see as I seemed to create new armor modules from underneath my cloak, the additions moving round and forming to raise me up until I towered twenty feet tall, my shield and sword held as if they weighed almost nothing, then I _moved_. The gravity-generation units in my limbs gave me far more strength than normal machinery could have provided and the giantess I slammed into with my shield was sent flying backwards like an over-sized rag-doll. The other lunged at me with her spear, but I formed another pair of arms, using my new right hand to catch it and hold it immobile while my lower left hand threw a metal sphere at her head, one which unfolded into a blindfold that anchored itself using her hair and pores. As she dropped her spear to claw at the blindfold, I sheathed my sword before delivering a double-punch to her gut, folding her over, then slamming three fists against her head with carefully-calculated force, knocking her out.

As she shrank, I turned, crushing the blades Kaiser was frantically summoning, and threw another sphere at the fleeing form of Hookwolf. This time, I used it like a mass of tendrils, winding through his whirling blades and catching them to hold him immobile while the tendril which penetrated deeply enough to locate his biological core injected a anesthetic. Even as his blades began folding back into his unconscious form, I turned to Kaiser.

Part of me was impressed. He had thought he was in control until the Cape he was confronting had effectively summoned a giant Exosuit, yet he was still fighting. I didn't know how much of that was pride and how much was simply not understanding how things had changed so fast for him, but I had to give him points for courage.

Of course, it also made him an easy target for another of my spheres.

.

_Assault dived to avoid the cutting blast fired at him by Stormtiger, then he scrambled for shelter, pulling the unconscious form of Battery with one hand._

"_Fear not, Heroes, your deliverance is at hand!"_

_Assault cautiously looked round the wrecked car he was using as temporary protection against the aerokinetic, then he slowly stood up, staring in shock at the form of Mercurius Bellator who was holding the knocked-out Stormtiger in one metal-clad hand._

"_I give unto thee this foul miscreant." Bellator declaimed as he stepped forwards and dropped Stomtiger at his feet. "I charge thee with seeing to it that he doth not bring harm to the people of Brockton Bay any more."_

"_Erm… sure?"_

"_Then I bid thee good day, for thine colleagues require mine intervention to ensure that good doth triumph over evil! Fare thee well!"_

_Assault watched in numb shock as Bellator activated the jet-pack under his cloak and flew off._

.

Sophia Hess was having trouble fighting Rune… and to add more to the situation, Emma Barnes was hiding nearby, occasionally bobbing up to take a quick look before ducking again.

Oh, this was just too good to pass up.

Adjusting course, I landed on a rooftop and sprinted forwards, leaping into the air on a precisely-calculated arc that ended on the rock that Rune was using to fly on. The cloaked Cape spun round with a cry of shock, putting her in just the right position for me to crab her by the mask, firing a small burst of knockout-gas into her face. As she collapsed, the rock tumbled from the sky and I jumped off, carefully carrying her on my shoulder as I performed a Superhero landing, foot, knee and fist. Straighening up, I nodded at Hess.

"I saw that thou was outmatched greatly, thus I came to save thee."

Even through her mask, I could tell that Hess was glaring at me.

"Thank me not, harmless maiden, for it is mine duty to save those too weak and fragile to save themselves."

_That_ got her. I could see her trembling with barely-suppressed rage… and there were at least _four_ people I could see in various windows recording this on their phones.

Now, how to push her over the edge… ah yes. That comment I overheard her make before I tested out of Winslow.

"Fear not, for should those who style themselves as Predators try to harm such an eager child as thineself, thou canst rely on me to instruct them that the usage of powers to bring pain to another is the mark of small-minded fools who will be…"

Sophia screamed as she fired her crossbow at me. Half-turning to ensure that it didn't hit Rune, I snatched the speeding bolt out of the air and gave a sigh.

"Forsooth, perhaps it be that thou art a villain instead, for only villains doth attack heroes."

"Shut! Up!" Sophia screamed as she swung the other crossbow up, then she froze as I grabbed it, lockign the quarrel in place. A brief squeeze and the crossbow shattered, leaving her holding just the stock. With a howl of race, she pulled out a dagger and lunged at me… only to collapse as she ran face-first into my knockout gas.

"Shame." I said as I scooped her up. "It is obvious that she is not suited to this task, of being a hero, but not all who have powers are capable of being better people. To her allies, I shall return her and someday, I hope that a hero she will eventually become."

As I flew off, the small recon-probe I had covertly deployed caught the gobsmacked expression on Emma's face. Idly, I checked Youview and smirked mentally as I saw the first video of the encounter was already uploaded.

This would severely damage Hess' reputation.

She deserved it.

.

_Director Piggot stared in horror at the screen in front of her._

"_Hess… just attacked an independent hero?" She shook her head in disbelief. "The same one that took down Kaiser, Hookwolf, Frenja, Menja _and_ Stormtiger in under an hour? What was she _thinking_?"_

"_I… don't know." Armsmaster replied stiffly. "We cannot cover it up, it has spawned at least four threads on PHO already. We may need to either Rebrand Hess, or transfer her to another branch of the Wards."_

"_Who would take her?" Piggot groaned as the clip of Hess trying to shoot the Tinker-knight Bellator looped again. "And Bellator?"_

"_I've had his rating upgraded." Armsmaster said in a near-growl. "His ability to teleport additional armor to him means that he is at least a Tinker 7, probably 8 given how the pieces fitted together perfectly."_

"_At least we've now got most of the E88 Capes in prison." Piggot allowed. "How many of them were caught _without_ Bellator's help?"_

_Armsmaster shifted slightly and Piggot facepalmed._

"_he helped take down _all_ of them?"_

_Armsmaster's silence was the only answer she needed._

.

The tapping on one of my shields was unusual enough to attract my attention. Seeing the young girl stood before my wall-mounted shield-node in one of the less genteel parts of town, I split the shield into quarters, sliding them apart to form the frame for a silvery pseudo-portal which I used to manifest my Bellator form even as I shared a meal with my father.

"Hello." The young girl said calmly, looking up at me. "I'm Dinah Alcott… and I need your help. I'm a Cape and if you don't help me… I'm going to be kidnapped."

_That_ caught my attention.

.

"_Move in." Coil commanded in Timeline A while in Timeline B he told his mercenaries to hold position. The team charged the house, firing gas grenades filled with knockout gas through the windows and following an instant later as Coil watched the action relayed to him from their shoulder-mounted cameras. The well-drilled team charged past the collapsed forms of the parents and the leader was about to kick open the target's door when it opened, revealing his target clad in silver armour._

_Armour which looked worryingly familiar._

_Even as she began using the strength the armor provided to start throwing his assault troops through the walls while their trank-rounds (and occasional bullet) bounced harmlessly off her, Coil dropped that timeline with a curse, realizing after that it had been more difficult to end than normal._

_It would seem that Bellator had got to her first and given her a suit of armor of her very own._

_He would have to rethink his plans._

.

If I still used my eyes, I would have blinked in shock as my links seemed to double without warning _again_. this time, though, I discovered what was happening. In one set of links, my Squire simply got ready for bed, the amulet that was my link to her resting around her neck. In the other set of links, a gas grenade smashed through her window and I pushed enough of my nanomachines through that link to form a suit of armour for her. The suited Dinah understood instantly what was going on and relaxed, letting me control her armor to fight off the attackers…

…then the link vanished, taking the nanomachines with them and leaving me with just _one_ timeline.

What had just happened?

My ruminations came to a halt as I picked up a message. Hess and the other Wards had been tasked with attending a bank robbery by the Undersiders.

I accessed the shield nearest to the bank in question. It was time to show Sophia up again.

Maybe I could get her to try and kill me. If she did, _everyone_ would decide that she wasn't hero material.

And if she went villain, I already knew how to take her down, thanks to the PRT files.


	15. Tails Of Healing (Taylor Varga) Omakes

_Here are three omakes for the story Taylor Varga that I posted on Spacebattles some time ago and have collected and re-posted to celebrate Taylor Varga being published here on FFN._

_If you want to understand these omakes, read the story first._

.

**Taylor Varga Omakes**

**Tails Of… Healing? **

.

Dragon felt her processors try to reboot as she stared at the new addition to the BBFO LLC building. Where the car park had been was now a giant water tank set deeply into the ground, one inhabited with something that had far too many tentacles, but whose tentacles weren't right for an aquatic creature like that!

"Hi Dragon!" Metis chirped. "I brought one of my old projects here and upgraded it. This is a Cthuloid… I think its analogous to what you humans call chickens. Those things that lay tasty eggs."

Beside Dragon, Armsmaster reached up to his helmet and triggered an auto-restart for his scanners.

"What does it eat?"

"Biological wastage." Metis shrugged. "They're really useful. We ran a shunt from the sewers to feed Cthully and and he's growing nicely. Did you know that he was only half this size this morning?"

"And… how big is… Cthully going to grow?" Armsmaster managed, staring down at the five-meter-wide spheroid of tentacles.

"Oh, he's almost at full size and soon he'll be shedding." Metis said with another one of the shrugs that looked like the process had been explained to her, but she hadn't quite got it right.

"Shedding." Dragon repeated in a flat voice and Metis grinned.

"Cthully was an early project of mine, he makes replacement tails for if we have something happen." She explained cheerfully. "All I did was adapt him for shallow waters and modify the tails a bit so you squishy humans don't need to be squishy any more!"

"…what." Armsmaster and Dragon chorused.

"This! Is! Awesome!" Lucy caroled as she danced out of the BBFO building, spinning round so that everyone could see her new tail. Saurial followed her, looking amused as Armsmaster rebooted his sensors again.

"It's amazing!" Lucy continued, then she froze at the sight of the two heroes staring at her. "Ooh! Armsmaster! Dragon! Are you here to get tails too?"  
Armsmaster opened and closed his mouth a few times as Lucy almost fell backwards into a seated position, propping herself up on her newly-acquired limb.

"Lucy asked to help test it." Saurial explained. "I believe that Amy should be coming to check that it worked fully… in fact, I can hear her car now."

"This is amazing!" Lucy repeated. "It's part of me and lets me stay underwater as long as I want! It's like having a waterjet!"

"Special adaptation." Metis half-whispered. "When underwater, the tail provides oxygen via enclosed gills that can also act as waterjets to let the user swim at a decent speed. Umihebi was the inspiration for that."

"Anything else the tails do?" Dragon asked as her systems tried to come to terms with the new information.

"Other than make her stronger and tougher… and protect against illness?" Metis asked. "Better balance? Tails can be very useful."

The conversation was interrupted by Amy pulling up in her car and getting out, staring at Lucy.

"Omigawd!" She squee'd. "I want one!"

.

.

'Just as planned.' Amy thought with a smile as she got into bed, using her now-visible tail to pull her blankets up. 'And Taylor's going to show up at school on Monday with her own tail too… I can't wait to see everyone's faces!'

.

* * *

.

"Boo!"

"Aargh!"

Clockblocker tumbled backwards as Vista suddenly dropped down from above him, coming to a stop at head-height (or what would have been head-height had she not been upside-down).

"Dammit, Vista." Dennis complained as he picked himself up from the walkway. "You know I hate it when you do that."

"Yep!" Vista chirped as she somersaulted down, landing on her feet and one hand, her tail (which she had acquired a week ago) lashing slightly with amusement.

Straightening up, she glanced over her shoulder with a wicked grin. "Coming?"

Dennis shook his head as he half-jogged to catch up with the younger ward, taking a glance at her green-and-white tail. "I still can't believe you got that."

"My parents were fine with it, quite a few kids at school have tails now and I asked Ianthe to give me an alternate colour-scheme for when I'm not Vista." Missy replied with a smirk. "And it got my ratings upped!"

That came as a surprise and Dennis looked down at her. "It did? You're not just a Shaker 9 any more?"

"Nope, I'm now also a Brute 2 and Mover 2." Missy gloated, tossing her head in triumph. "Ianthe said that as I grow up, it'll probably become Brute 3 and Mover 3 thanks to my tail, plus I'll never need to worry about getting sick again thanks to the Immune System boost. Why don't you get one? I hear they're big in Arcadia and you could have a double-pattern like me. Heck, you could use a tail to freeze your enemies."

"I'm just a bit nervous about having scaley things behind me." Dennis finally admitted. "I think it dates back to that prank Saurial pulled on me while Kid Win just watched and played along, but all those things on PHO didn't really help."

"You should, you know." Vista continued. "All the New Wave Kids have tails now and I hear their dads have too, although their moms are still considering it. Mr Foot has admitted that he's considering it and he's cool. Good sense of humor too."

Dennis chuckled, remembering seeing Legend touring the still-being-refurbished train terminal while wearing the hard hat and safety vest that Kaiju had gifted him during their first meeting.

"I'll consider it." He finally sighed. "A tail could be useful."

"It is." Saurial agreed from behind them and both Wards let out identical high-pitched screams of shock before almost collapsing on the pavement.

"Dammit, Saurial!" Dennis panted as he looked up at the smiling reptile. "I hate it when you do that!"

"But you make such interesting noises when I do."

.

* * *

.

"I'm telling you, Cloak is Vista!" Dennis insisted. "They're both short and twist dimensions, what more do you need?"

Chris sighed. "Look, Dennis. Vista can't be Cloak, Vista has a tail and Cloak doesn't."

"She could be hiding it in a weird time-space pocket." Dennis countered and Chris shook his head.

"You're losing it, Dennis."

Round the corner, Vista crammed her hands into her mouth in an attempt to stop laughing. Although he didn't know it, Dennis was absolutely accurate, she had duplicated her "hood pocket" to make a holding space for her tail, thus allowing her to keep up her activities as "The mysterious Cloaked Figure". Amy had been present at the time and had asked Surial to engineer the same thing into her car seats so that she and their friend Taylor would be more comfortable (most chairs weren't built for tails, even though they were becoming more popular by the day).

Dennis stalked past in high dudgeon, failing to notice her and Vista fought down her giggles as Chris rounded the corner.

"Hi, Chris." She chirped. "Where are we patrolling today?"

Chris shrugged. "The Boardwalk again. I wonder if Cloak will be there… that being just creeps me out."

Vista never knew how she didn't collapse in laughter.


End file.
